#back to murder high school Danganronpa | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

throwaway-yandere · 10 months

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FLAWLESS (Yandere!Various Genshin/Reader)

A/n: This is a complete interactive fic w/ CGs! There’s an HP system and 4 possible endings (yandere!Scaramouche, Alhaitham, Kaveh, and Kazuha). This is my final fanfic and I really put my best effort into drawing and writing this. Have fun!!! Your choices matter so read the evidences properly and try not to get a bad ending hahaha. (Pls answer this poll after and feel free to send me memes about who you got hAHHAHA)

Unreliable Synopsis: (Danganronpa!Genshin AU) If this is your last dance as an idol, then you do not want it. No. You’ll make the real criminal sing instead.

CW: yandere themes, blood, murders (well duh ansy–), and brief mentions of suicide.

Kazuha frowned. "For (L/n) (Y/n), this whole ordeal must seem like a flawless crime."

"They don't know the murder weapon, the suspects— no nothing." Kaveh sighed.

Alhaitham interjected. "Indeed, but the real questions will begin in a moment."

Words punctured the air in nameless accusations. Each time people enter this room, only distrust looms acting both as a safety blanket and suffocating plastic. You stared at the people left. One, two, three, four, five... You clenched your fist, and all those fingers pointed back at you.

The sixth.

There are only six survivors left.

"Say, (L/n) (Y/n)." Your Akademiyan companions stared at you as Kunikuzushi’s smirk could practically be heard in his voice. "Where were you at the time of the murder?"

You gulped.

The Teyvat Akademiya. Home only to the most renowned student of their craft. The faculty carefully picks out select groups of students to be their new freshmen- and it can only be counted by hand how many had declined such a generous offer. It was a government state university, but it was also a golden ticket to knowing people from high places.

Each student was known for contributing something in their fields of interest. In fact, both your adoptive siblings were alumni of this prestigious school. Your brother Aether was a famous "adventurer" (as he loved to call himself instead of an artifact-obsessed archeologist) whereas your sister Lumine was a remarkable swordswoman with a straight-edged track record. Even your older friends, Dainsleif, and a certain glasses-wearing individual you had forgotten the name of were graduates and now boast incredible resumes befitting of an Akademiyan. Each alumnus you've met wasn't someone any person with a head on their shoulders would dare disrespect.

But that was not the reason for your schoolmates’ evident intimidation.

“Allow them a moment to process,” Alhaitham scoffed. “The Body Discovery Announcement was approximately 2 hours ago. It’s challenging for individuals from the entertainment industry such as them to comprehend complicated matters in a few seconds.”

“I would’ve fainted at your rare attempt at empathy if it wasn't obviously pointed,” Kaveh scoffed before turning to you with a soft stare. “(Y/n), don’t listen to these two, I’m sure we can find out if you’re innocent or not later.”

You gave a short nod of assent.

Tragically, murders had become the norm for college students like yourself. No one has flinched at Kaveh’s grim mention of a suspect lurking by and none had the insanity to deny what had occurred.

It began when you first woke up in one of the Akademiya's classrooms. You stirred awake on a desk near Shikanoin Heizou, the "Detective Prince". He was a famous figure, so you instantly believed him when he said you were both hauled into this location against your will. You were enthused by his infectious desire to uncover whatever was behind the “kidnapping” you found yourselves in. He told you not to worry, that despite the barred windows and inaccessible exits, you'd both "probably" find a way out. As you both wandered around the area, you found fourteen other students (some familiar faces, some not as much). For a brief moment of hope, everyone thought escape was possible.

That was until a certain cold-eyed puppet entered the scene.

A heartless puppet you’re sure was waiting for everyone just under that elevator.

“Is… Is this everyone?” You asked like a mouse, frightened as your eyes darted for any hints of twinned cyan hair. Nothing about your recent behavior had gone unnoticed.

Senior Faruzan is missing…

Yoimiya frowned, grabbing your hand for comfort. “(Y/n)…”

Kunikuzushi scoffed. “Enough of this dumb ohhh boohoo exhibit. Let’s go.”

The most mysterious of the bunch left for the stairs immediately, punching the button on the elevator to its ground floor. Yoimiya huffed, muttering complaints about Kuni’s behavior while the three other men followed her silently. No one took the stairs two at a time and walked at a snail’s pace. A clear indication that no one wanted this to occur.

And just like in the previous cases, Kazuha’s eyes were on you the entire time but spoke nothing of this behavior.

The elevator door opened. You looked at the camera above it. If the Shogun's words are to be trusted, then the outside world is watching your every move like reality TV.

If that's the case, might as well give them a show.

Kunikuzushi stepped aside, royally ushering everyone— and specifically YOU— in.

“Idols first.”

Everyone entered the trial room. If the mood from earlier was tense, it is worse now that you’re inside. Stepping into the cold room makes the situation all the more real.

There is an execution waiting to happen, but without a hint if it’ll be “us” or “them”. Every bright person inside the room here had previously partaken in 4 of these court sessions by force. Since no one can exit the premises nor contact the outside world, the only key out was to kill and avoid getting caught. 5 people had attempted to commit murder, and considering how you’re still breathing, none of the “blackened” had succeeded in getting their way.

How… How did it come to this?

You enrolled in the Akademiya in hopes that you'd also find the subtle clues as to why Aether went missing, this wasn't in your plan.

Getting roped into this killing “game” was on no one’s to-do list. You received an invitation to enroll in the Akademiya because of your stark idol career, although your siblings being famous alumni may have greatly increased your chances of receiving that privilege. You would’ve thrown that paper into the fire if you knew you’d get dizzy upon arriving in the Akademiya and will wake up in such a heartbreaking dilemma. Hearing from a grapevine, you discovered that Kaveh was invited for his architectural drafts, Kazuha for his poems and a bit of swordsmanship in his repertoire, Yoimiya for her firework shows, and Kunikuzushi?… You don’t know. But you are wholly aware as to why Alhaitham is here as your senior— you were there when he opened his letter after all.

The “mascot” is yet to make her entrance. So, as “obedient” students, you’ve uncomfortably shuffled to the places you were meant to stand. Bile rose inside your throat as you looked at the last five students excluding yourself circling the room— with Faruzan’s crossed-out portrait to your right while Kamisato Ayaka’s on your left. It would appear that most of the dead students were on your side and the closest breathing person next to you was Kunikuzushi, who was two photographs away.

Alhaitham, Amber, Tighnari, Ajax, Albedo, Kamisato Ayaka, You, Faruzan, Xiao, "Kunikuzushi", Kaveh, Cyno, Yoimiya, Layla, Yunjin, Kaedehara Kazuha, and Shikanoin Heizou.

The deceased faces had been crossed out in bright violet paint, a nauseatingly unsubtle reminder that only six remained. Yet, the one that was meant to sit towering above was missing.

“… Where’s The Shogun?” Kazuha asked.

“Ah, so you do have a voice. And here I was about to call you a cricket. I thought our poet lost his words, considering how the previous trial ended,” Kunikuzushi mocked, rolling his eyes. “Just wait and see.”

You sighed, hoping it was quiet enough for Kuni not to have heard it.

The last trial broke everyone’s spirits and sense of camaraderie the most. Before trials, the puppet gives everyone an incentive to kill. In the Ayaka-Heizou murder case, each student was given a videotape that raised more questions than answers. Yours was a clip of Lumine, your fellow theater actors, and idol mates congratulating you for your enrollment before it cuts off to a scene of your home burned to cinders. As for Ayaka, hers was a short-lived message of her older brother asking her to come visit the clan for Thoma’s upcoming birthday— before it cuts to a gruesome scene of her brother fatally wounded on their living room floor.

“Find out what happens once you graduate!”... and then the tape ends.

Whoever was the mastermind behind this killing, you had to admit, they were an expert in psychological torture. And unfortunately for everyone, Ayaka was a smart individual— killing the most trustworthy student, Heizou, to cover her tracks better. She put up quite the fight in manipulating everyone to think that you and Kaveh were possible culprits.

You even got into an argument with the calmest person around. Kazuha was “convinced” that Ayaka was right, which led to you two entering an incredibly heated argument that left him depressed with his rejected apology. You were on "good terms" with him before, that being he would always offer to cook food and accompany you often.

… Perhaps that was a good thing. Discreetly, you thought he strangely knew you to a degree that makes you far from comfortable. It still bugs you how he knew you all too well and yet you know nothing about him other than his aspirations: traditional Inazuman poetry writing with a bit of karuta on the side.

Maybe he used to be a big fan of yours? Even so, the foundation of your music, choreography, and persona was weaved through a tapestry of feel-good lies. And yet, he was wise enough to speak your true thoughts before you even hesitated to voice them in your cheery idol tone.

But that’s not the issue right now.

The issue on your plate was that you had no evidence to prove your innocence except for the list of school rules on your E-Handbook because you were convinced someone will kill you during the investigation.

You laughed to yourself bitterly. Might as well review those rules now.

You opened the E-Handbook.

As per “school rules”, there are regulations to be had in a murder game, but none stick to you as these three. Rule #10 and #7: A class trial will commence after three or more students have discovered a corpse, and a Body Discovery Announcement will play as soon as it occurs. However, a trial will be held if and only if every survivor is present; failure to do so will result in class “expulsion.”

And the last rule that never left your mind was Rule #8: If the guilty party is exposed during the class trial, they alone will be executed.

By the end of Trial #4, she did not receive a proper execution. Ayaka was compelled to restore her honor and raised her sword to…

…

… You couldn’t hate her for it. Even though you were close friends with Heizou, you couldn’t hate any of your fellow students. They all had family, hopes, and visions for the future. Each one here was "a fledgling barely out of the nest." You couldn’t deny that you would’ve done the same.

"Since the Shogun isn't here yet, let's get a headstart," Kaveh gripped the court fence, eyeing everyone with a nervous stare and stiff posture. "What's your alibis?"

Nobody raised their voice initially. You cast a pitying glance toward Kaveh. When it comes to your closest friendships, he comes in second only to Heizou. As someone who had seen the horrors of the media which is essentially a mirror of the world's social issues, Kaveh's one of the few decent individuals left on the planet, in your opinion. In moments of quiet, you, Kaveh, and Faruzan used to chat together, with Heizou periodically interrupting to share his findings regarding everyone's entrapment.

Considering how Kaveh is your last true friend left, you volunteered yourself.

"I never left my room," you spoke audibly depressed, no longer caring that you appeared un-idol-like. "And I refused entry as well. I heard a couple of angry knocks at 9:37 p.m., but I didn't open my door for anyone."

You looked at Kazuha, hurt and accusingly.

You'd never forget how Kazuha called you a murderer. That intense argument made up 30% of Heizou's class trial. He lost his composure and called you a "dishonorable monster". The whole back-and-forth was very much unlike him. After the trial, neither of you talked– and you never left your room unless it was to get something to eat without anyone in sight.

If he was the one who killed Faruzan because he can’t get to you, then you’ll…

"9:37 eh? You got a watch now?" Kunikuzushi pointed at your wrist.

You snapped out of your aggression and nodded, which made him break out in a fit of laughter.

"HAHAHA!!!" Kunikuzushi grinned, wide. "Learned your lesson, huh?!"

You scoffed, but your ego was humbled and your heart sank at his harsh words.

Everyone in the room nearly lost their lives because of your time-blindness. It's precisely what made Kazuha suspicious of your motives. You were always unsure of the time, hence, you didn't have the most watertight alibi compared to Ayaka. Before you entered your room to lock yourself, Alhaitham blocked the door with his shoe and handed you his spare wristwatch. He was the last person you saw before your self-isolation.

"Good," Alhaitham said. "And you, Kunikuzushi?"

"Are we going to ignore that angry knocking thing?" Kaveh rightfully asked.

"Let's complete the first task first," Alhaitham answered. "Let's follow the circle; it's (Y/n), then Kunikuzushi, Kaveh, Yoimiya, Kazuha, then I."

"Conveniently putting yourself last," Kunikuzushi snarled. "But whatever. I was napping in my dorm. Woke up when I heard footsteps outside and decided to investigate. The discovery alarm rang off when I entered the nurse's office the second time."

Kaveh fell silent, his face pale.

"I… never went to m dorm that night"

"Oh?" You and Yoimiya curiously said in unison.

"I-I was with Alhaitham, patrolling!!!" Kaveh defended; his arms in the air. "I swear on my life, I was with him! We're probably the footsteps Kuni heard."

He spoke as if it was a good thing with his mouth, but he was whispering that it wasn’t with his eyes.

"Can't be certain," Kunikuzushi threw in a quick grumble and snapped his fingers. “But I think that's probably the case.”

"That makes sense. I mean, if Kuni was telling the truth then that just means there's more chance it's just those two hopping around. Oh, and I was actually on the second floor at the time. I was in the recreational room cause I wanted to get tokens for the cute little Shogun Stall.'' If Kuni’s side comment lasted a month, then Yoimiya's would be a year– but her good cheer is just what everyone needed to alleviate the tension.

"I wasn't in my dorm room either," Kazuha said. "I was in the cafeteria. I couldn't sleep so I decided to fry fish."

"True, I think. When I checked the cafeteria a knife was missing from the shelf."

"We’ll keep your fact-checking in mind, Miss Naganohara."

No soul was sure if Alhaitham was being genuine about it except for you. And the answer was yes, he was being warily appreciative. Admittedly, you don’t know any of these people before this killing game started, except for one person…

Alhaitham looked away, conscious of how you looked at him.

In all fairness, Alhaitham was closer to Lumine than you and Aether, and he wasn’t your favorite neighbor either. As a kid, he was the type who would leave in the middle of hide-and-seek simply because the ordeal wasn’t “stimulating” to his developing intellect. He had a habit of causing uncomfortable situations just to “observe” your reactions with an emotionless stare. Alhaitham had once given you a sumeru rose with a startling grasshopper to see how you would behave, and the worst part is that everyone knows he did these without malice. His grandmother had to force a sorry out of him for your tears to dry. “He probably has a crush on you, you know how boys are,” was the excuse the old lady tried, but your twin siblings were quick to shut that thought down. You and he were simply oil and water, nothing more, nothing less.

But there were times you two got along. When you aired out loud sentiments regarding how stuffy his room must be, you snatched the book he was reading and dashed up the nearest tree. Despite his grumbling reservations, he was thankful that you taught him how to climb that afternoon. That was the first you saw him smile wider than usual and offered to narrate the book you stole: The Little Prince.

However, that version of Alhaitham you’ve come to love remains awol amidst this killing game.

"As for my whereabouts: Kaveh is correct. He and I were patrolling just the first floor and exchanging conversation. Neither of us could sleep. We started at 9:15 and ended abruptly at 11:05, when we, along with Kunikuzushi, found–"

"The body." Kunikuzushi finished.

"Yes," Alhaitham said.

Kunikuzushi smirked. From your perspective, the worst part about this was not Kunikuzushi’s inappropriate smugness, but the look in his eyes that mirrored what Heizou used to have— what your good friend used to be. The light in his eyes, his more forward demeanor, the way he crossed his arms and snapped his fingers– it was as if he was copying him.

Mocking him.

You hate Kunikuzushi. You detest just how much you don’t know why he’s in the Akademiya or anything else about him other than his first name. You loathe how he had made it his job to be the antagonist of every damn class trial. You hate how he looks at you as though you’re beneath him. You despise how much he is willing to withhold vital information till the very end.

Kunikuzushi is like a commedia dell’arte stock character. A Scaramouche. An unreliable servant. You can’t trust a man who said he was moved by your acting in all your filmography only to act like he wants nothing more than to crush your spirits once lives were at stake.

After listening to everyone’s alibis, your intuition screamed from something deep within a place you had begun to trust after experiencing these trials:

Out of six survivors, FOUR of them are hiding something.

“Is everyone present?”

Before you could speak up, a low and refined woman’s voice stole everyone’s attention. All turned to gaze at the long synthetic-haired lady with a katana by her side. She returned the stares with an unfathomable coldness as she strutted to her throne, the silk of her grand kimono touching the floor.

There she is. The lone audience and judge. The puppet: the Almighty Raiden Shogun. Undoubtedly made of metal and not flesh. Xiao had learned that firsthand when he sacrificed his life in an honorable duel against the captor— but seeking freedom by force was of no use when she herself is capable of the murders she wished to witness.

“Very well. We shall begin.”

“W-Wait, hold up, ma'am!”

The last vaguely extroverted cheerleader raised her hand; her bravery to interrupt the Shogun was acknowledged.

“... Can I share my E-Handbook data with (Y/n)?” She asked, high-pitched.

The medical and criminological technology of this era eluded everyone. Trapped inside the Akademiya with no phones or any signal to the outside world, each student only has their E-Handbook to rely on. It contains information the owner investigated regarding murders and records testimonies made by their peers. A handbook is only “handy” for both people who were hoping to survive and those who were hoping to twist the facts.

And that offer is exactly what you need.

“You see– they didn’t leave their room during the investigation period– probably worried that the killer might be after them next and they kinda turned into a hikikomori for the past few days. I’m kinda worried they wouldn’t be able to defend themselves on this trial so… So, uh… Pretty please?” The blonde girl smiled nervously.

The Raiden Shogun stared, calculating.

“I shall allow it.”

“Thank you so much!” Yoimiya tapped her E-Handbook as fast as she could, more eager than you were in watching the loading screen fill up.

(SYSTEM: RECEIVING NAGANOHARA YOIMIYA’S E-HANDBOOK DATA…)

(SYSTEM: TRANSFER COMPLETE.)

You smiled at Yoimiya but it came out crooked and jaded. She didn’t complain that you weren’t at your top form today, but she did send you a loud “Do your best!” in her native tongue.

The Shogun walked to the throne and took her seat.

“Now then, let the class trial begin.”

Out like a bolt of lightning, the doors behind you were completely shut with metal bars in her flick of a wrist. In her twisted form of justice, she hammered the circular surface with her gavel.

“Court is now in session.”

(SYSTEM: TAP HERE TO CONTINUE)

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cannibalisticdespair · 5 days

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🔥 Despaircest (can't be unpopular as in "fandom hates it even though it's gr8"; we need to go weirder and deeper)

If those two fucking idiots ever had an actually honest and heartfelt conversation, things would have gone extremely differently because they actually did feel the same about each other.

The Despaircest plot is told out of order. 1-6's trial has Makoto's hope include the caveat of "we don't even know if Junko is lying!" Yes, he also goes "and if she isn't, we've got this", but that's just half of it and the other half is "nuh uh!" And here's the thing: SDR2 came out years later after DR1 was successful. DR1 never tells us if Junko was lying or not. So, view it with that in mind. DR1 leaves the question to us: was she full of shit?

Two years later, we get the answer. In 2-6. A whole game later, we find out the answer was "no, Junko was not lying". And that modifies the viewing of 1-6. Because now, you have to view 1-6 as "Junko is telling the truth here, she isn't lying to manipulate anyone, she's just being honest". When Junko says she loves her classmates? That's true. When Junko says the world ended? That's true. When Junko says Mukuro is just like her and loves despair the same way as her... wait, what?

Oh, but you're given a decoder ring. Beating SDR2 unlocks Danganronpa IF, where we find out that that is not at all true. But... if Junko isn't lying, but that isn't true, there's only one possible explanation. Junko's wrong. Now, how does that line up with IF? Perfectly.

In IF, Mukuro survives the murder because Makoto's memories start to come back and he warns her to dodge using her real name, so she does it on instinct, so she doesn't die, but he does get hurt trying to save her. Which leads to Mukuro turning on Junko. But importantly, there's the breakup.

"Say, sis?" "Oh! Junko, it's you!" Ikusaba's eyes brightened at the first sight of her sister in days, but they would soon go dim. "You know, I was always thankful to you, sis. I mean it." It was because Junko's voice, coming from the speakers, was terribly soft and gentle. "...Junko?" "I'm really sorry. I was being too harsh with you. I even tried to kill you just now, and I was about to make you do something horrible. Even though I know how you feel about Naegi." "I-I don't..." "Don't force yourself. You might not realize it, but it was really obvious. You never cared about those class pictures, but you looked at the camera properly that one time Naegi took the photo." From just the image on the monitor, the Super High School Level Despair looked like a girl with a sweet, innocent smile teasing her older sister. But that was exactly why Ikusaba was slowly falling towards despairing fear. "I always thought you should've put your all into it when you were in a picture with Naegi, but I guess that's all part of your disappointing self, sis." "But you know, you might be lackluster and disappointing, but I love that about you too." Ikusaba trembled. "I love you. How long had she wanted to hear these words from Junko? Ikusaba believed that, no matter what Junko said, she actually loved her very much. Ikusaba believed that she alone could understand the despair known as Junko Enoshima. It was a ludicrous notion. The moment Junko said, 'I love you', Ikusaba realized--to her agony--that she never truly understood her sister. Only now had she come to realize Junko's feelings. Junko was being kind. There was no lie in her gentle words. Perhaps she was being entirely truthful about loving her sister as well. This was precisely why this signalled the destruction of their relationship. Ikusaba realized that Junko was cutting ties with her. And before Ikusaba could say a word in reply, the girl on the monitor left her with a word of cruelty. "I know you'll make your dreams come true someday."

Do you get it? Junko really, truly loves Mukuro just as much as Mukuro loves her. And they never understood each other, but they both completely believed they did. Combine this with Junko in 1-6 talking about Mukuro and you have Junko's belief before the truth is revealed to her and Junko after the truth is revealed to her.

So, what was killing Mukuro? Trying to say "I love you" and make Mukuro's dreams come true without understanding Mukuro's love language or Mukuro's dreams. Consider how Junko describes how Mukuro "must have" felt. Why would she deny herself that despair? Simple: so Mukuro could have it, believing Mukuro wanted it just as much as she did. Her act of love in DR1 was self-sacrifice to give the greatest gift she could imagine to someone who she never realized didn't want it.

And what does Junko do when she does realize it? She breaks her entire sense of self and personality just to express her love to Mukuro. She realizes Mukuro has hope and everything, and she encourages it and fosters it out of love for her. She loves Mukuro enough that, even knowing they will now be enemies, she will speak Mukuro's love language rather than her own to make Mukuro truly know how much she loves her. This scene and killing Mukuro have the same meaning, and you can only come to understand this by combining 1-6 and IF to get two contradictory perspectives in order to recognize the before-belief and the after-belief.

Junko fucking loves her so goddamn much, but Junko expresses her love in a very particular way. Despair. Remember what she said to Class 78? She loves them all. She wasn't lying about that either. It's so personalized, so direct, so cruel, because she loves them. She loves Mukuro most of all, so she granted Mukuro the most intense despair imaginable, even though it meant losing it for herself, even though that is literally her entire modus operandi. It's fucking self-sacrifice when she kills Mukuro.

The twist is that she never understood that Mukuro didn't want it. Junko can understand and learn anything, except the one thing staring her in the face. But because of her talent, she can't imagine that there's something so blatant right in front of her she's failing to understand. Mukuro meanwhile? Danganronpa Zero gives us this:

Then, looking at the face Ikusaba-san showed me, I was suddenly taken aback. The ever so emotionless face was, ecstatic and smiling. "I don‘t know if...she is attracting despair or despair is attracting her but...she has lived her whole life with despair by her side. She lived while immersed in despair. That‘s why she began looking for despair in others. She learned to enjoy pushing people into despair. But you know, that‘s normal. It‘s the same as someone being cursed by misfortune fall into hatred for those who aren‘t. But what‘s special about her was that, she learned to enjoy inflicting despair onto herself. That‘s how the link to despair began. As she chased down despair, she pushed it onto others on the way. Doing so, it caused her to desire falling into despair even more...and because of that chain to despair, the Super High School Level Despair was born." While she spoke, it was like she fell into a fever, the expressions on her face turned into ecstasy. It was so completely absurd that it would have been hard for anybody to think of it as anything but a joke, but I understood that this was real. It might‘ve been because the memories of Junko Enoshima inside me led to that conclusion. "Hey, you don‘t get it right? I don‘t think anybody could. But you know, only I can understand it..." Consumed by ecstasy, even Ikusaba-san‘s breaths began to become ragged. "Only I am able of understanding her. That‘s why she needs me. She still hasn‘t realized that but, maybe she is only pretending not to realize. Ufu, that‘s because she‘s so shy. Ufufufu." Seeing this intoxicated Ikusaba-san continue to talk like that, repelled me. I knew that she definitely didn‘t have normal feelings for Junko Enoshima, but that sort of thing shouldn‘t have anything to do with me.

They both have failed to understand each other. Danganronpa Zero came out before Danganronpa IF. So,

Ikusaba believed that she alone could understand the despair known as Junko Enoshima. It was a ludicrous notion.

Is a callback to

"Hey, you don‘t get it right? I don‘t think anybody could. But you know, only I can understand it..."

Both of them are having their preconceived notions about each other shattered at the same time in that scene in IF. Because both of them just assumed they understood each other. Because of course they did. They've been linked at the hip so long, they're symbiotic. Except, no, they didn't. Because they both assumed, rather than ever actually talking and getting on the same page. And note,

Seeing this intoxicated Ikusaba-san continue to talk like that, repelled me. I knew that she definitely didn‘t have normal feelings for Junko Enoshima, but that sort of thing shouldn‘t have anything to do with me.

It was incest in 2011. Before SDR2 and IF released. It was always incest. DR3 just was going "now shut the fuck up, we've visually confirmed it for you".

So yeah, Despaircest was mutual love of equal intensity ruined by them both being arrogant dipshits who failed to get on the same page because they wouldn't just have a goddamn conversation about it because they both assumed that they would gain nothing from it because they totally already understood each other so goddamn well. It was mutual, and Junko actually really did love Mukuro just as much as Mukuro loved Junko. It turned tragic from a lack of communication.

#danganronpa #despair.irl #despaircest #ask #ask game #junko enoshima #mukuro ikusaba #junko x mukuro #enoshima junko #junko fucking enoshima #junko #danganronpa junko #danganronpa spoilers #danganronpa fandom #danganronpa mukuro #dr mukuro #danganronpa if #danganronpa zero

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funishment-time · 3 months

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Alright. Now that I know the questions, and forgive me if these have been asked before, 16, 19 (for Miu), and of course, our good pal, 17

whee hee hee!!!

16. Do you have any ideas for a Danganronpa murder? Share!

the series is lacking a good murder-suicide or Lover's Suicide. (i mean as an individual case/trial. you could argue that all of DR1 is a murder-suicide or Lover's Suicide)

beyond that, a high-temperature complete burning-to-death that results in ashes and little Evidence, or withholding important Medication that keeps a character alive, would both be Interesting

17. List five headcanons for your favorite characters!

special edition!! wee woo wee woo! for this one i will list 5 SFW ship headcanons, but if you're not into these Ships (or Shipping in general), i have 5 regular headcanons here too. double the value!

skip these if you don't like Ship dynamics:

KAEDE x. MIU: Kaede insists on being the little spoon, which flusters Miu for all eternity

FUYUHIKO x PEKO: they never have kids, but they do have a hundred thousand fluffy Creaturas of various sorts. dogs and cats and rabbits and chinchillas and maybe even a herd of Alpacas roaming their great Yakuza estate. "no one's gonna fuckin' take us seriously," Fuyuhiko always says, but he's smiling because his wife is

SAKURA x HINA: after scientific evidence shows that naps have a positive effect on the human body and its growth (see DR1's School Mode), Sakura tries to get Hina to take short naps with her daily. like, 20 minutes tops. unfortunately, this rarely Works, because no one taught Hina how to sit still for longer than a half-second, but it does give them cuddle time on a busy day

FUKAWA SYSTEM x KOMARU: neither of the Fukawas ever stop lusting over Byakuya. it's just that Komaru is their wife, the love of their life, their girl, their beloved. their crush on Byakuya ends up being more, uh, purely NSFW in nature. in the end, though, the Fukawa system would rather be with Komaru, because she's Domesticity, she's Love, she's Healing, even if she won't turn them into her own personal livestock or whatever it was Toko wanted in UDG (i black out during those scenes). anyway, Komaru perfectly understands this, and really doesn't feel Threatened by it at all, because it's not like Byakuya is ever going to give the Fukawa system what they want

MAHIRU x HIYOKO: after her growth spurt, Hiyoko gets intense stretch-marks, which knocks her self esteem down a peg. thankfully, Mahiru loves her terrible banana-headed gee eff Just As Much

and now for the regular headcanons:

Nekomaru is generally asexual. he's never felt shame in it, as it allows him to Focus on his athletes better in an increasingly competitive world

in a non-despair AU, Kokichi ends up on the student council every year, inexplicably, as Treasurer. no one notices when he's lifting money from HPA because no one notices when Jin Kirigiri is doing it, either

Ibuki has been the first kiss of many-a girl at HPA

in her own way, Junko felt threatened when Mukuro was pretending to be her, both in DR1 and in Zero. this factored into Junko kebabing her, but also into Junko's obsession with putting her down in Extremely Childish Ways, as well as her insistence that Mukuro was Gross and Nasty and Could Never Be Her!!! at the end of DR1. by the Despair Twins' HPA days, Junko was too far gone to ever deal with it or admit it, but so much of her final despair centered around her identity and her sister. she may not have gone full Killing Game if not for Mukuro

Sakura has dislocated bones, sometimes during a match, and then immediately popped them right back into place without hesitation or pause. this only makes local Lesbians more in love

BONUS: the Warriors of Hope do heal in their own way as they grow, but they always have a hard time patching up the wound named "Big Sis Junko." on a fairly Objective level, she did nothing but good for them and took them out of a Bad Situation when no one else did. so: while the WoH become as content as they can be as adults, they also have an exceedingly difficult journey understanding Junko as a Very Bad Person Actually

19. What kind of fantasy creature would you make Miu?

Miu is most definitely a goblin. gross, loud-mouthed little thing tinkering and tonkering, but extremely Lovable

#danganronpa #miu iruma #sakura ogami #junko enoshima #ibuki mioda #mukuro ikusaba #nekomaru nidai #kokichi oma #aoi asahina #kaede akamatsu #peko pekoyama #fuyuhiko kuzuryu #mahiru koizumi #hiyoko saionji #komaru naegi #toko fukawa

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danganronpasurvivoraskblog · 3 months

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Mikan Tsumiki VS Fluttershy [Danganronpa Survivor VS My Little Pony]

Hifumi: Mikan Tsumiki, the not-so eloquent Ultimate Nurse...

Leona: And Fluttershy, the not-so submissive Element of Kindness.

Hifumi: Kindness is compassion and love in perfect harmony. It is loving yourself enough to love those around you.

Leona: But despite their power, it seems these two clumsy, skittish, yet sweethearted companions are gonna need a little help with that...He's Hifumi, and I'm Leona!

Hifumi: And it's our job to analyze their weapons, talents and skills, to see who will win a DEATH BATTLE!

Leona: Back to standard procedure folks!

Hifumi: As we're already all familiar with by this point, Hope's Peak Academy is a school committed to assisting in the training of high school students who are at the top of their fields.

Leona: And as we mentioned before, when everyone at the academy thought their lives were set in stone, Tragedy struck! Literally

Hifumi: That of course, being the arrival of Junko Enoshima. Alongside her manipulation, scheming and casual feats of murder that she did for a bit of fun, her most notable feat of the Hope's Peak Tragedy was the brainwashing of Class 77, turning them into the Ultimate Despair, who then proceeded to wreak havoc on the world as we knew it.

Leona: Yeah, we've been over this...Though it is pretty sad. All of these guys were living such fruitful and happy lives before she came along...

Hifumi: Well, I wouldn't say ALL of them...Truth be told, aside from the likes of Izuru Kamukura and Nagito Komaeda, there is one member of the Ultimate Despair who stands out more than others...That would of course, be Mrs Mikan Tsumiki.

Leona: Huh...She seems pretty meek...

Hifumi: Well, that would be...HALF right. Mrs Tsumiki's early years were difficult, and that's putting it VERY lightly! She suffered from emotional and physical abuse at the hands of both family members and people she knew outside of that. She has talked about getting burned by cigarettes, getting smeared with mud, and getting splashed with water, among other things. The bullies would make her pay for their debts, make her eat bugs and make her act like animals, beat her up, cut her hair, draw on her, and use her as a dart target. At times, she was even told to undress.

Leona: Jesus fucking Christ! Those people are MONSTERS!

Hifumi: It's actually a lot worse than you may think. Because of the things she was subjected to, Mrs Tsumiki became so twisted, she began to see abuse as AFFECTION. Consequently, she turned into a very shy individual who believed that receiving negative treatment was preferable to receiving none at all.

Leona: What the FUCK man! Jesus, how can humanity be so fucking cruel! What did SHE do!?

Hifumi: So, it's no wonder that she ended up falling to Despair first. She was the first victim of the brainwashing, serving as Junko's guinie pig, and she took to it VERY well...Better than Junko could have dreamed.

Leona: I'm afraid to ask what you mean by that...

Hifumi: It's unclear what happened or why, but Mrs Tsumiki became sickeningly obsessed with Junko Enoshima. Like Harley Quinn with the Joker, she subjected her body and soul for the sake of Junko, and to causing as much despair as possible in her name. Her obsession was so strong, it broke through the memory suppression of the Neo World Program when she and her classmates were trapped in it, and following Junko's death, not only did she try to copulate with her corpse, but she cut out her own uterus and replaced it with the corpse's

Leona: I'm gonna be sick...!

Leona does indeed go a shade of green and turn around to vomit in the corner.

Hifumi: I had figured you already knew this...I apologize.

Leona: Can we like...maybe take a step back? We're moving through this a bit too fast...

Hifumi: Right, right, of course...Mikan Tsumiki learned how to take care of herself at a very young age because no one was there to tend to her wounds. As her proficiency in this area increased, she developed an interest in nursing and was eventually brought on as the Ultimate Nurse by Hope's Peak Academy.

Leona: Because of this, she's very intellectual about medicine and healthcare, and on multiple occasions, she's been able to save her allies even when they're basically as good as dead. She also knows exactly how much anesthetic and painkillers to exhibit to a person to knock them out without killing them.

Hifumi: Which is extremely important to her own unique way of fighting and taking down her opponents, because believe it or not, past all the emotional damage and timid nature, this skittish nurse lady is...kind of a badass!

Leona: Mikan seems to give this idea that she's a harmless, good-for-nothing girl who couldn't hurt a fly, but NONE of this is true. If you let your guard down around her or find yourself at the end of her anger, you might find yourself being thoroughly PENATRATED by her MASSIVE...! GIRTHY...! Syringe!

Hifumi: You had me for a minute.

Leona: Given the shit this chick does, I think the dirty jokes are appropriate here.

Hifumi: In all seriousness, Mrs Tsumiki has used this syringe a few times, most notably during her confrontations with Future Foundation's Ultimate Elite Task Force, specifically the Ultimate Nail Artist, as well as Nagito Komaeda.

Leona: Why does EVERYONE want to fight Nagito Komaeda!?

Hifumi: It's not like we want to, it's just that he's VERY punchable. But the difference between her and the others whom have fought him is...believe it or not, she was able to take him out.

Leona: SHE DID!?

Hifumi: Well...KIND of...She was able to run circles around him and trap him, applying her skills with stealth and smarts to get the victory, but ultimately knocked him out by distributing repeated shots of sleeping drugs to him. This only took effect AFTER his fight with Izuru Kamukura though, so it's more like she came and got the last hit in when he was already on low health. Doesn't take away from her other achievements though.

Leona: The syringe can be used to scratch and stab a bitch with it's needle, but it also holds what is basically a tub of anesthetic medicine. If she impales someone with it and gets all up inside them, she can let her juices flow through them, and this she-devil's juices are DEADLY, even more than usual.

Hifumi: You need to stop.

Leona: If I didn't say it, you would!

Hifumi: Dirty jokes aside, anesthesia and sleeping drugs are a powerful weapon when used right, especially in the hands of someone experienced giving shots to people. Distributing enough of this can have some heavy side effects. Agitation, disorientation, lightheadedness, somnolence, dysphoria, changes in hearing, tinnitus, perioral numbness, metallic taste, and dysarthria can all result from an overdose. These warning signs and symptoms can develop into seizures, respiratory arrest, coma, and ultimately death if they are not properly identified and treated quickly.

Leona: But that thing sure looks big dumb and heavy. Wielding it can't be easy. How much does it weigh exactly?

Hifumi: Oh, about 150 lbs.

Leona: Oh, ok-WHAT!?

Hifumi: Not only is the syringe pretty hefty on it's own, but Mrs Tsumiki has stated that the syringe can hold up to 18 gallons of sedative liquid inside it. The density of the anesthetic is obviously much thicker than water, but that would at least put it to at least 150 lbs, which for reference, is about the weight of a dirt bike.

Leona: And she's just lugging that thing around no problem?

Hifumi: Obviously, Mrs Tsumiki isn't something like Mr Nidai, who could probably wield the heavy thing like a spear if he wanted, so her attacks using her trademark weapon are usually a little sluggish, so assuming you can outspeed her, it won't be much of a problem. However, if a hit DOES land, kiss your ass and your consciousness goodbye!

Leona: And even if it doesn't, Mikan's got ways around this problem...In the form of OTHER weapons! MORE NEEDLES!

Hifumi: She is indeed a Trypanophobists nightmare, as well as a nightmare for everyone else. On top of having a giant syringe as her main weapon, Mrs Tsumiki has also been known to employ smaller syringes as weapons, which she uses kind of like throwing knives. The syringes have a unique property in that the moment they pierce flesh, they apply whatever liquid is inside them, which again, is usually sedative anesthetic, albeit on a much smaller level than her main weapon.

Leona: They also sometimes contain painkillers or other sorts of medicines, usually created with Seiko Kimura's help, that Mikan can use on herself and her allies to pep them up. And she's got killer accuracy too. Plus, she has a surgical scalpel on hand for an emergency. It's honestly kinda weird...I wouldn't expect such feats from someone this emotionally unstable and...honestly, clumsy.

Hifumi: Yes, it's a well known fact that Mrs Tsumiki has a tendency to accidentally fall over in compromising positions, however, though she doesn't always outright admit it, it's implied that this was all an act. Due to her diseased mind, Mrs Tsumiki didn't become a nurse mainly out of her desire to help people, but actually upon recognizing the likelihood that she could feel in control of sick and injured people. After all, people who are sick are, by default, weaker, and they would have to rely entirely on her since they were the weaker party, and she would be in charge of their lives.

Leona: That's...kinda fucked up actually, but hey, I get it. She's seen some shit.

Hifumi: Fortunately or unfortunately, this endless abuse didn't stop even as an Ultimate Despair. Though she gave her life and everything else to Junko's cause, and claimed COUNTLESS victims, possessing one of the highest kill counts among the remnants, she was eventually captured and placed into the Neo World Program by the Future Foundation, which was then taken over by Junko's AI, and she was subsequently forced into the second killing game.

Leona: During which, her abilities and own physical capabilities really shone through. As we said already, Mikan was the only one who was able to remember her life as a Remnant of Despair, likely because her love for Junko was so insanely strong. Shortly after Monokuma hit the group with the Despair Disease, Mikan concocted and pulled off a plan of her own, which resulted in the deaths of BOTH Ibuki Mioda and Hiyoko Saionji. Speaking of which, let's talk about that quickly!

Hifumi: Nobody looks upon this moment favorably, let's be honest, but to be frank, this plan was BEYOND impressive in terms of how it's pulled off! Namely because of the amount of speed and timing that would be needed to pull it off.

Leona: We don't really need to go into specifics, but to summarize, during her plan, Mikan ran from the hospital to the music venue, smashed a bunch of electronics, changed the temperature of the room, tore off the wallpaper hiding Hiyoko's body, glued the door shut and runs all the way to the motel just as Hajime is meeting up with his friends. Based on the relative amount of time it takes for Hajime to meet up with the others, Mikan's window of opportunity was a minute at least and 2 minutes at most.

Hifumi: Which is frankly an almost impossible feat of strength and power coming from someone like her, but we can talk more about that in a minute. Following the conclusion of the Killing Game, Mrs Tsumiki was one of the first people to be brought back to life in the other side, but unfortunately...the influence of the disease remained.

Leona: Perhaps it's because Mikan technically got two doses of the brainwashing, or because she remembered during the Killing Game; but either way, Mikan came back still as a remnant self, and caused a lot of trouble, especially since the object of her affection didn't remain in the world any longer, with both her real and AI self having been wiped out. Fortunately, Hajime and the others weren't about to give up on her, even after everything she did.

Hifumi: Ironically, Ibuki Mioda, a fellow Remnant, was the primary defender of Mikan's second chance, despite being one of her victims in the Killing Game. She assisted Mikan in recovering from the trauma and returning to a generally stable state of mind. And there was a lot of trauma to work through, in case we didn't convey that already.

Leona: I guess in the end, all she ever needed to get over her damaged body and mind was a healthy relationship. And she got MORE than that when it came to Ibuki! Turns out our loveable nurse isn't TOTALLY terrible with women! Then again, as simple as I am, I wouldn't be quick to enter a loving relationship with a girl who murdered me once before...

Hifumi: Mrs Tsumiki went on to rebuild her classmates' faith and trust in her, helping the Future Foundation with medical needs and healing people this time for the right reasons. Even though she is still emotionally hesitant and timid most of the time, she makes an effort to apply herself in the fight for good and works on growing rather than letting her past or her flaws define her. With all that being said...there WERE some problems.

Leona: Yeah, it turns out that even after restoring her honor, she still felt an itch...a craving for Despair...But she tried her best to suppress it for the sake of her classmates around her. She would never have dreamed of hurting her friends anymore, but she continued to relish the thoughts, and hated herself for it. However, she eventually learned to follow the old saying "If you can't lose it? USE it!"

Hifumi: I think you're misremembering "If you can't beat them, join them," but I suppose that works better here. Whenever things are at their bleakest, Mikan Tsumiki learned to instead of giving in to her lingering psychopathic tendencies, she would WEAPONIZE them.

Leona: We in the analysis business give this idea a neat little name of "DESPAIR RAGE!" You know that meme of the doctor with the gun? "I'm a healer, but..." that one? Yeah, that's Mikan when she's in this state.

Hifumi: Not only does she become inherently more violent and destructive in this state, throwing most of her morality and conscious decisions to the wind, but Mrs Tsumiki also becomes more sociopathic, sometimes outright toying with her enemies, like she did to Nagito Komaeda when she had him at her mercy. While the state doesn't necessarily make her STRONGER, it does stop her from holding back in any way, shape or regard.

Leona: On that note, to close out this segment, why don't we quickly go over some statistical feats? We've already established that she's really strong and fast, but despite her surprising strength, Mikan has a hard time applying that to fights. She IS a medic after all, not really a soldier, and applies most of her skills to healing wounds instead of causing them, unless it's as a last resort.

Hifumi: Which is why when Mrs Tsumiki is faced with combat, she chooses to less rely on strength and durability, and opts more for speed and smarts. Like hiding in the shadows to land a sneak attack, or setting and luring her opponents into traps. It helps that she seems to have an innate stealth ability and keen strategical prowess.

Leona: I guess when you're not capable of setting off nukes by taking a shit, this is the best you can do. Speaking of traps and durability though, I'd have to say her most impressive feat is the fact that she fought Nagito Komaeda in such a confined environment! And when he was an Ultimate Hope too!

Hifumi: I'm inclined to agree. Do you remember how we mentioned in our first matchup that Makoto Naegi was able to survive being thrown through a solid ceiling and walls? Well, during her fight against Komaeda, Mrs Tsumiki did the same thing! SEVERAL MORE TIMES IN QUICK SUCCESSION in fact!

Leona: As a reminder, we calculated in the third episode with Akane that the amount of energy required to send someone crashing through a solid stone wall 31.572 grams of TNT, since Akane herself did it with Nagito earlier in the same arc. Mikan's feat is significantly less impressive since the number of walls she was thrown through were thinner and fewer, but it's still an unbelievable feat for someone to survive, and that's not even mentioning what happened afterwards!

Hifumi: Mrs Tsumiki's penultimate plan was to keep Mr Komaeda distracted until the Future Foundation had enough time to blow up the building with the both of them inside it. This ultimately didn't do much in terms of stopping Komaeda, but the entire buildings collapse didn't kill HER either! She escaped with several wounds and a completely mangled foot, but with her life.

Leona: So all in all, just remember that if you ever tick this seemingly timid and sweet caretaker off, you may find yourself in a state worse than death. An apple a day keeps the doctor at bay!

Leona: We're about to get into some serious shit with this one, and no, I'm not kidding, so hold your horses.

Hifumi: Was that a pun, or did you say that on accident?

Leona: Welcome to the land of Equestria, a magical kingdom full of rolling plains, beautiful mountain ranges, and rainbows! A place where you just can't help but be happy! One of the places you'll find in this magical realm is Cloudsdale! Home of the Pegasuses...or Pegasi...or...Pegacivilians...Take your pick.

Hifumi: While Unicorns are known for their magic, and Earth Ponies are known for their connection to nature, their ability to fly, walk on clouds, and manipulate the weather are what makes the Pegasi unique.

Leona: Here's some juicy lore for you folks out there who stupidly thought that this was a simple toy franchise for little girls - The Pegasi are portrayed as a militaristic, organized tribe with a well-established fighting force and a cloud home filled with war-themed monuments. Members of the original Pegasus Tribe were in charge of weather control in exchange for food harvested by Earth ponies. To sum it up, the Pegasissies in the world of My Little Pony are kind of like Saiyan's in Dragon Ball, or at least a similar premise. Yes, really.

Hifumi: And just like it was with the Saiyan's and Son Goku, there's one Pony in particular who doesn't quite fit in line with the legacy of their bloodline. We can certainly see the warrior influence in Rainbow Dash, a previous DB competitor, but far from it in her best friend...The peace-loving, hug-mongering Fluttershy.

Leona: As someone who, to probably no one's surprised, is obsessed with MLP, allow me to take over most of the historical analysis here. As Hifumi just mentioned, Fluttershy, even as a filly, was not like the other Pegasusans in Cloudsdale. In fact, she was quite a notorious outcast who didn't fit in, nor get along with many of the others around her.

Hifumi: Mainly due to how she had a taller, ganglier body and larger wings, but also wasn't a very good flier, despite that basically being the Pegasi's thing. It would kind of be like if someone made fun of you for not being able to walk properly because you have a bonky leg, which...Yeah, that's...

Leona: Yeah, kinda fucked up, right!? My Little Pony addresses ABLEISM, and very early on in fact! She was given the rather disgraceful nickname of "Klutzershy" from the colts because of her clumsy nature, but a young Rainbow Dash stood up for her. She challenged Fluttershy's bullies to a race, but then...things went a LITTLE wrong...

Hifumi: During the race, Rainbow Dash and the bullies accidentally knocked Fluttershy off the clouds and down to the ground below, but she was conveniently saved by landing on a group of butterflies. However, this was the first time she had ever been outside of Cloudsdale and was unfamiliar with the world around her, and Fluttershy was overwhelmed by seeing the beauty of the animals and the greenery for the first time.

Leona: So much so that she started to sing a merry tune. You know, as you do. But a few moments later, Rainbow Dash, who had been frightened by Fluttershy's fall, burst in so fast to find her, she created a sonic rainboom that startled the animals and scared them into hiding.

Hifumi: Fortunately, it was here that Fluttershy discovered her true calling in life. She might not have been as fast, or as brave as the rest of her people, but learned that she had a gift for talking to animals, after managing to quiet the critters down after the scare. Moments later, she earned her Cutie Mark.

Leona: And no, that's not a euphemism for something. The cutie marks are obtained when Ponies discover a unique characteristic that sets themselves apart from others. Effectively, if she existed in our universe, this would the the symbol of Fluttershy's Ultimate Talent.

Hifumi: With time, Fluttershy established herself as one of the members of the Guardians of Friendship, or as the community calls them, the Mane 6, alongside Rainbow Dash, as well as Twilight Sparkle, Applejack, Rarity and Pinkie Pie. Unfortunately, even once she was a fully grown adult pony, her timidness and shyness didn't go away. I mean, it's in her name obviously, but she's typically very pacifistic and somewhat cowardly, possesses severe stage fright, and she was so shy in the first half of the series that she could hardly speak in front of strangers and that she was unable to say "no" when asked to do something that she didn't want to do.

Leona: But again, that's what makes it so weird and baffling, because just like her opponent, this "crouching moron" is a "hidden badass!"

Hifumi: Even early on in the series when it's most sold that Fluttershy is weaker than most Pegasi around her, it's also proven to NOT be the case. It may mainly be because of her lack of confidence in herself, but at her peak when she throws this to the wayside, usually out of fear or anger, she has the potential to be stronger AND faster than even Rainbow Dash.

Leona: She WAS able to outfly Rainbow Dash while towing two other ponies in a hot-air balloon, and kept up with her when creating a tornado. Something that the Pegasussusamongus do as part of their rituals in Equastria, and even though she's noted to not be as good at base level as the rest of her people, she SHOULD realistically be capable of this feat at her full potential.

Hifumi: You did that one on purpose...

Leona: Maybe I did, maybe I didn't?

Hifumi: You DEFINITELY did!

Leona: She's also ran the entire Running of the Leaves, a very intense running race, without showing a notable decrease in stamina, and her ability to empathize and communicate with animals has helped both herself and her allies in tight jams before. However, on top of all these wacky powers and abilities, there's one that really stands out that only she possesses...THE STARE! DUN DUN DUUUUUN!

Hifumi: The Stare is, in short, Fluttershy glaring at you angrily like a disappointed mother, and she usually uses this look on misbehaving animals. While this doesn't sound THAT intimidating coming from a soft-spoken pony like her, it's proven to ACTUALLY be quite powerful, so much so that Fluttershy openly says she only employs it in life or death situations, or to maintain order. It's so effective, she was able to use it to tame a cockatrice!

Leona: Kind of like Medusa, staring a cockatrice in the eyes turns you to stone, which it did once to Twilight Sparkle. However, Fluttershy employed the stare on it, looking it dead in the eyes, and actually got it to RELENT, causing her own petrification to be reversed, as well as Twilight's.

Hifumi: However, despite how powerful this "Stare" really is, it has it's limitations. Namely, it's shown not working on powerful and/or chaotic and unrelenting creatures like the infamous Discord, who merely laughed in Fluttershy's face when she tried to use it on him. It also seems to have absolutely no effect on more aggressive creatures like Flash Bees.

Leona: But even amongst the incredible feats of the Pegusfring's, and her own powers like the stare, Fluttershy's main source of power comes from her own special magic. The Mane 6 are capable of wielding these special artifacts called the Elements of Harmony.

Hifumi: In the My Little Pony universe, the Elements of Harmony are commonly described as "the most powerful magic known to Ponydom." Thousands of years ago, Princess Celestia and Princess Luna discovered them and removed them from the Tree of Harmony. Every artifact symbolizes a facet of friendship and becomes active only when the wielder possesses the matching trait and when all six are used together.

Leona: That being said, Twilight Sparkle was able to use the Element of Magic by herself in Equestria Girls, so the latter part isn't exactly true. In the case of Fluttershy though, she wields the Element of Kindness!

Hifumi: The Kindness Element is represented by a pink butterfly-shaped gem set in a gold necklace, resembling the butterflies in Fluttershy's Cutie Mark. Though it's only really ever used as a last resort, using the Element of Kindness, Fluttershy can restore peace and balance in moments of complete and total anarchy. Aside from granting Fluttershy special magical powers like generating forcefields, the Element can be used to banish different villains to different planes of existence, like the moon, Tartarus, or limbo, or it can be used to imprison something, like when it was used to imprison Discord in stone.

Leona: Yeah, Tartarus is a thing in My Little Pony. I told you, the lore fucks! And if you didn't think THAT was crazy, the Element can also summon a rainbow tornado that no matter what, completely engulfs its target! If they are evil or opposed to harmony, this tornado will completely change their morality and they will show remorse for their actions!

Hifumi: A very fitting power for someone like Fluttershy, who even without the Element's power is already kindness and sympathy incarnate? Do you remember how we brought up Discord? He's a Draconequus who is LITERALLY the physical embodiment of disharmony and chaos, and was originally one of the ponies most terrifying foes.

Leona: Emphasis on "originally," because thanks to Fluttershy's kindness and her willingness to see the good in people; even after he went on to cause even more trouble for her and her friends, she was not only able to REFORM Discord of his evil ways, but became his best buddy! And potential love interest as a lot of the fandom will tell you, but that's a discussion for another time. So yeah, if anyone's gonna wield the Element of Kindness, it's Fluttershy!

Hifumi: To make things even worse for any enemy that might have the gall to underestimate her, Fluttershy is also capable of boosting her power through the last means you might expect from MLP, but then again, that seems to be a running theme...Transformation!

Leona: We could be here all day talking about this but to sum it up, there's basically this tree that has a chest, and unlocking this chest unleashes this ancient power inside it that allows the Mane 6, including Fluttershy, to take on the POWER OF THE RAINBOWS! Or...Rainbow Power as it's called.

Hifumi: The Rainbow Power is only briefly seen, but following the opening of the chest, Fluttershy and her companions all gained more magic and underwent physical transformations. The Mane 6 used this power to defeat Lord Tirek, after he stole Twilight's powers, along with the magic of the entire population of Equestria! And that includes, Celestia, Luna and Discord's power!

Leona: The Rainbow Power and transformation bestows Fluttershy with all the same powers as the Element of Kindness tenfold! When she and her friends used it following the overpowered Tirek's rampage, she returned the stolen flight, strength, and magic back to the ponies of Equestria, even the Alicorns, and it also gives her powers like unlimited flight, powerful forcefield creation, summoning a gigantic spiritual Alicorn to aid in battle, and even increased Banishment powers like when she sent Tiren back to Tartarus with it.

Hifumi: And to top it all off, that's not the only transformation that Fluttershy possesses. She's also capable of taking on her own unique, and honestly rather deadly form...the Flutterbat!

Leona: So not only is Fluttershy at her peak a weather controller, multiversal goddess and the living embodiment of the concept of Kindness, she's also a FUCKING VAMPIRE! MY LITTLE PONY EVERYBODY!

Hifumi: To be more specific, Fluttershy became a vampire fruit bat-pony hybrid when Twilight unintentionally transferred the vampire fruit bats' desires to her. Her cutie mark transforms into three pink bats, and she gets fangs, bat wings, red eyes, and bat-like ears. She was able to outmaneuver the other ponies in the air with ease while squeezing the juice from apples and spitting out their seeds in this form.

Leona: So think a vampire that sucks on apple juice instead of blood. Twilight eventually managed to restore her back to normal, but at the end of the episode, Fluttershy retained a small fang, and later took the form of Flutterbat again to help Princess Luna defeat the Tantabus.

Hifumi: All in all, there's a LOT to Fluttershy than meets the eye, and thinking she's an easy target is a recipe for one's downfall. She has so forcefully bucked the back ends of two garbage wagonloads that they have flipped over to the vertical position and back again, skillfully wrestled a bear while trying to give it a massage, and withstood an attack from Sunset Shimmer when she herself was using the Element of Magic.

Leona: In one episode, she and Bulk Biceps, a very muscular Pegasoo, collided into a mountainside with such force that an indent was formed, and Fluttershy was crushed beneath Bulk's larger body. She is stuck on him when he flies off, but she appears surprised rather than pained, and in the following scenes, she is perfectly fine! She's also successfully defended herself against Iron Will, a really buff minotaur dude, fought and overpowered Cozy Glow for a time, stood up to a giant dragon despite her innate fear of them, and fought an army of Changelings, insect-like beings who feed off the love of others to gain power for their own.

Hifumi: Fluttershy may easily lose her cool when she's angered, and she may be cripplingly afraid of many things, but there's one indisputable fact about her. She's a VALID and DESERVING member of the Mane 6, and will pull her weight when she needs to, no matter what comes her way.

Hifumi: Alright, the combatants are set! We've run the data through all possibilities!

Leona: IT'S TIME FOR A DEEAAATH BAAATTLLLLLLEEE!

WARNING:The following battle contains actions of extreme violence committed on a character from My Little Pony. We understand this sort of graphic content and description can perturb some readers, so while we don't normally give this warning, we will here. Should you wish to skip straight to the results, by all means do so.You have been warned.

The scene opens to into a peaceful setting within the middle of a quiet orchard on a sunny day in Equestria. The birds are singing, the animals are casually playing around.

This peace however, is interrupted by a terrified scream, as Mikan Tsumiki comes bursting into the clearing, crying and panicked, literally pulling her hair out.

Mikan: Where am I!? What's going on!? WHERE AM I!? WHAT'S GOING ON!?

Freaked out and scared at having randomly ended up in this strange and unfamiliar location, Mikan's mental state is rapidly crumbling, and the animals around her run for safety, feeling threatened by her frankly overwhelming presence.

Meanwhile, not too far away, several more animals gather around a yellow and pink pony, tending to them and singing to them while doing so.

Fluttershy: ♪ I like the quiet, I like the calm...To turn it up, to sing along...I'm not just shy...Look close, and you will see...There's so much more to♪ -HUH!?

Fluttershy's soothing melody is swiftly interrupted as the animals cries from beyond the shrubbery grow closer. She lifts her head and sees several critters scurry from the bushes, followed by a clumsy, stumbling, purple-haired nurse, who trips over the branches and lands on her face. She quickly lifts her head to see Fluttershy staring back at her with astonishment.

Fluttershy: A human...!?

Mikan: KYAGH!? A-A t-t-talking horse!?

Fluttershy: How did you get here!? A-And why are you scaring the precious little animals away!?

Mikan: Wh-What!? No, no, no! Th-That's not what I

*CRUNCH!*

Fluttershy: HEEE!?

Mikan: EEEP!

Fluttershy, the animals and even Mikan herself gasp in horror, as Mikan gets to her feet and accidentally steps forward on top of a small mouse. The mouse squeaks in pain as it's crushed beneath her foot.

Fluttershy: Oh no! H-Hold on! I can help-!

*WHOOOSH!*

Mikan: AAGGGGH I'm SORRRYYYYY!

*SMACK!*

Fluttershy: GUGH!

Mikan: Agh...TCH!

Mistaking her approach for her trying to avenge the creature, Mikan fends Fluttershy off by grabbing her syringe from behind her back and swatting her away with it when she flies in to supposedly attack. Mikan looks back and forth between her weapon and her now opponent, her expression darkening as she realizes it's far too late for peaceful negotiations.

Though Fluttershy seems hesitant, she agrees to the duel regardless. With the exception of one deer who quickly grabs the poor mouse's body first, the rest of the animals quickly scarper, leaving the area open, as the fight begins!

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Though initially trying to go in for the first blow, Fluttershy starts the fight by staying on the defensive. Mikan hoists her giant syringe up and takes some hefty swings. Though even in a panicked and confused state, Fluttershy easily avoids them.

*SHUNK!*

Fluttershy: KUGH!

Mikan: HUAGH!

*POW!*

Fluttershy: Haah...! U-Uwagh...Ngh...CHAGH!

Mikan: OOF!

When Mikan eventually gets a hit in while Fluttershy is at her most vulnerable, he punches the plunger to inject Fluttershy with the viscous anesthetic fluid inside. Fluttershy manages to break free just in time, and despite feeling lightheaded due to the anesthetic's effects, she counterattacks by using her front hooves to kick Mikan.

Fluttershy takes a moment while she has breathing room to check her wound. Seeing that she's slightly bleeding, she quickly wipes the wound with her hoof as Mikan recovers from her previous attack.

Mikan: What is going on...!? A-Am I hallucinating!? Is this some kind of dream...!?

Fluttershy notices that Mikan is panicking and in this moment, takes some sympathy on her.

Fluttershy: Hey, um...It occurs to me that we...may have jumped to conclusions before...You don't have to be so scared-

Mikan: N-No! GET AWAY FROM ME!

Mikan pulls out a bunch of smaller throwing syringes from her apron. Crying her eyes out in fear, she throws a barrage of them at Fluttershy, trying to turn the Pegasus into a pincushion.

Fluttershy: EEK!

Fluttershy's eyes widen as she sees these needles incoming, and she quickly rolls to the side and dashes out of the way. She flies forward, but looks back, worried that the needles might hit any of the animals.

Fortunately, they collide with the trunk of a thick tree and get stuck. Unfortunately, Fluttershy, not looking where she's going, bumps into Mikan. The two clatter to the floor, the latter in a rather compromising position that she quickly covers up.

Mikan: KYAAGH!

Fluttershy: Oh, sorry! I'm so sorry!

Mikan: No, that was my-Ugh...It's ok...Hold on, let me-

Fluttershy: N-No, let me get this for-OOF! My, this is REALLY heavy!

Mikan: No, no, I've got it! Thank you though...

Fluttershy: Sorry, I wasn't looking!

Mikan: No, seriously, thank you!

Fluttershy: Anytime!

Mikan & Fluttershy: Huh? Wait...Oh, DANGIT!

After a brief distraction, in which Fluttershy helps Mikan to her feet and tries to hand her back her primary weapon, the two forget that they're supposed to be fighting and cuss themselves out for it. Mikan takes the first strike, almost pinning Fluttershy to the ground with her heavy weapon before the Pegasus shoves her backwards.

*WHOOSH!*

Mikan: Huh!? WAH-!?

*CRACK!*

Mikan: GUAAAGGH!

*SLAM!*

Mikan: OHOUGH!

Fluttershy: HEEEH!

In quick succession, Fluttershy darts between Mikan's legs, kicks her square in the back from behind, grabs her legs and pins her to the ground, similarly to how she does when she's massaging bears, though this is done with the intention of holding Mikan still on the ground.

Fluttershy: Please, just listen to me! I'm sorry I scared you! We don't have to be fighting like this!

Mikan: Haah...! Haaah...! Haaaah...! NRGH!

Fluttershy: YOWCH!

Fluttershy's wishes for peace aren't granted. Mikan gets Fluttershy off of her by grabbing another small needle and stabbing her in the ankle, injecting more of the fluid. Mikan throws Fluttershy off of her, grabs her big weapon, and dives into the trees.

Fluttershy: Wait...! C-Come back...!

Fluttershy calls after her, but the anesthetic makes her even more dizzy, and she's unable to see straight for a moment. Mikan on the other hand, hides behind a rather thick tree trunk in a darker part of the orchard, cradling her body and starting to hyperventilate.

Mikan: What do I do...!? What do I do...!? I don't even know where I am and I...I...!

You hurt them...

Mikan: Geh!?

It never ends...You hurt everybody...

Mikan: Stop...!

She'll kill you...

Mikan: No, no...!

She should...

Mikan: Grrgh...!

Die, you piece of shit...!

Mikan: Forgive me...! Please...forgive me...! I...

She slowly rises to her feet. She then slowly lifts her head, her expression having changed dramatically. The tears stop flowing, her lips stop quivering, she holds her syringe with a tight grip, and her eyes become swirled with layers and layers of anguish and darkness.

Mikan: I won't stop...until you FORGIVE ME!

Fluttershy: Please, c-come out...! I can help you...!

Fluttershy stirs as she suddenly hears the sound of something fast through the leaves behind her. She quickly turns around, but only sees traces of something that was there. She hears the same sound again and turns again, seeing the same thing.

Fluttershy: Human...? Wh-Where are you...!?

Mikan: Here...!

Fluttershy: HUH!?

*SHUUNK!*

Fluttershy: GHAAAAGH!

Fluttershy screams in agony as without a word of warning, besides Mikan's sadistic teasing, she feels the incredibly sharp pang of the giant needle in the back of her body! Though being restrained, Fluttershy turns her head enough to see that Mikan's timid demeanor has gone, and now the look in her eyes bares naught but a despairful rage.

Mikan: Heeheheheheheh! KYAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAGH!

Fluttershy: OOPH! RRGGGH!

Mikan: Heeeehehh...Hehehehhehehhheeegh...!

Mikan grabs Fluttershy by her jaw with one hand, holding onto the pony tightly as she uses her other to pump her full of the drugs in her weapon. Fluttershy's vision slowly begins to go dark, and the more the anesthetic enters her system, the weaker she gradually becomes, allowing Mikan to dominate her; baring a sadistic and perverse smile all the while.

Mikan then, to add insult to the very painful injury, kicks Fluttershy onto the ground and bounces off her into the air. While airborne, she once again reaches into her apron and produces several more syringes, which she holds between her fingers. She smiles down at Fluttershy, sticking out her tongue, sweating, and with a face-wide blush of ecstacy.

Mikan: Here's your PRESCRIPTION!

*SHUNK!* *SHUNK!* *SHUNK SHUNK* *SHUNNKKK!*

Fluttershy: KYAAAAAAAAAAAGGH!

The pain is agonizing! Fluttershy is injected with multiple sharp objects all over her body, pumping her full of drugs and rendering her nearly incapacitated and in immense pain, despite the needles causing little bleeding. She begins to lose sensation in her legs and her vision begins to warp. Mikan lands, picks up her enormous syringe, and moves slowly toward the Pegasus, raising the needle above her head for the final blow. All Fluttershy can do is crawl forward helplessly.

Fluttershy: No...Please...d-don't...! Huh?

Though her vision is still shaky, Fluttershy looks forward and meets eyes with a lone fruit bat, which is passing through, unaware of what's really going on with the situation and just looking for apples to eat in the orchard.

The bat glares into her eyes, and despite her agony, something stirs within Fluttershy, and her eyes widen, only to morph into an enraged and deranged frown as she feels her body begin to change...! Meanwhile, Mikan finally lets her chunky syringe fall down towards her head!

Mikan: DIE!

However, much to Mikan's surprise, as soon as she brings the needle down on Fluttershy, the pony disappears. This time, it's HER turn to be surprised when she senses a presence behind her...!

Flutterbat: *HIISSSS*

Mikan: GUAGH! GAGH! *SPLUTTER!*

Fluttershy, now FlutterBAT, smacks Mikan with her now hefty tail, sending her crashing into another tree trunk. Mikan lazily crawls to her feet and glares back at her attacker, who menacingly hangs upside down from a tree branch sucking on an apple.

Mikan: Filthy fucking rabies infested CREATURE!

Flutterbat: *SCREEEECCH!*

Mikan yells these enraged words out while hoisting her syringe over her shoulder before sprinting back into the fray. Similarly, Flutterbat drops from her perch and flies toward the Ultimate Nurse like small plane.

The sheer force of Flutterbat's wings almost knocks Mikan over, but she manages to stand and stabs Fluttershy with her syringe once more. This time, though, she sees that it does much less to slow Fluttershy down.

Mikan: What in the hell ARE you, freak!?

Flutterbat: *SCREEEECCH!*

Flutterbat, naturally, has nothing to say in response, and Mikan's frustration at not being able to gain the upper hand over her opponent grows. But Flutterbat also has trouble dealing Mikan any significant damage. She attempts to bite Mikan in retaliation, but the nurse dodges it and kicks her out of the way, only to have a gust of wind throw her back in turn.

Flutterbat: *HIISSSS*

Mikan: KYRRAAAAAGGH!

Mikan and Flutterbat trade violent blows, with Mikan using her syringe to hit Flutterbat and the former using her tail, sending each other flying back into the trees.

Flutterbat: Agh...Ngh...Hm?

Mikan: Haah...Hagh...HRGH! Huuh! Huuh! Huuh!

The blow into the tree has an interesting effect on Flutterbat as the transformation and continued fighting frees her of the initial effects of Mikan's drug-induced lunacy, making her vaguely come to her senses. When the pony sees the Nurse hyperventilating, clearly in a state of a panic attack, her reason comes back to her.

With it, Flutterbat drops out of her transformation and becomes Fluttershy again. Mikan's panic attack leaves her open to another blow, but Fluttershy refrains.

Before she can do or say anything, the animals from earlier slowly poke their heads out from the bushes, sensing a break in the fighting. Among them, Fluttershy sees the mouse Mikan stepped on earlier, now feeling a lot better, as it squeaks happily, but then squeaks in concern as it looks back towards Mikan.

Fluttershy also looks back at Mikan, who is still on the ground, breathing heavily. She smiles and nods towards her animal companions, as they prepare a plan.

Fluttershy: I...think I understand it now...! Everyone was so afraid of you...but you've been afraid this whole time, right? You must have end

Mikan: Grrgh...Hngh...

Fluttershy: I guess it's true, huh? It's so sad. I'm so sorry...But still...

Fluttershy stamps her hoof on the ground, drawing the panicked and crazed Mikan's attention. Fluttershy then employs her most deadly technique - THE STARE!

Fluttershy: That's NO excuse for your behavior! You need to calm down!

Mikan: ...

Fluttershy: ...

Mikan: Are you making fun of me...! Please! DON'T PICK ON ME!

*SHWOOSH!*

*CLINK!*

Mikan: Huh!?

Fluttershy: Yeah, I somehow knew that wouldn't work...!

Fluttershy giggles, embarrassed that her trick didn't work, but also clearly not having expected it to. But to Mikan's shock and surprise, as she throws another array of needles towards Fluttershy, they seem to bounce off her. In reality, they collide with a forcefield the Pegasus puts around herself.

While distracting Mikan with The Stare, Fluttershy's animal companions hang the golden necklace that is the Element of Kindness around her neck, and Fluttershy does not hesitate to use it's power to protect herself.

Mikan panics and throws more needles, but they also bounce off. Fluttershy bears an expression of sympathy, but also determination as she and her animal friends stride slowly towards the Ultimate Nurse.

Fluttershy: I meant it when I said I don't want to hurt you...But without my friends here...I need to do this...!

*SHIIIIIINE!*

Mikan: KRRGH! H-HUH!?

Mikan is nearly blinded by a light that erupts from Fluttershy's body, and once it dissipates, she looks up in horror to see Fluttershy in her Rainbow Power form.

Fluttershy: I think you should be careful...

Mikan: Wha-!? WAAAGHAAAGH! WHAT IS THIIIIS!?

Fluttershy: It's the most powerful magic in all of Equestria...Friendship!

Mikan: KYRAGH! KYAAAHAGH!

Die...Kill...No...NOOOOO...! STOP! NOOOOOOOO!

Mikan: H-Huh!?

Mikan's eyes shut tight as she's suddenly swept off her feet by a tornado made of rainbows that completely envelops her. However, they shoot open again, not in fear, not in shock or horror...but in clarity.

The voices in her head that drive her into despair...the foundation of her despairing rage...she feels them being washed away, and for the first time in her entire life...she feels free.

However, despite this, her nightmare doesn't appear to be over, as she stares back up at Fluttershy, who's body glows with a white light, and her eyes white out as she's filled with power.

Fluttershy: Heehee...!

*POYOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!*

Mikan: K-KYEAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGH!

Fluttershy, with a warm and cheerful smile, and with the animals of the orchard hovering around her in bliss and tranquility, fires a golden beam of light down onto her opponent, and Mikan screams in fear as she sees her body slowly but surely begin to turn into stone! Starting with her feet and working it's way up into her head, the broken Ultimate Nurse becomes a solid frozen ornament.

Fluttershy slowly descends to the ground with her animal friends, and returns to her base form. She's completely healed of every wound she suffered during the fight and her vitality is restored to normal. She and the animals approach the statue and carefully watch it.

Fluttershy: Once my friends arrive, we'll let you go free, and I'll gladly let you join my tea party! ...But for now, I'm sorry, but I have to sit you in time out...

Leona: Ah, poor poor Mikan. First a victim of batshit Danganronpa lore, now a victim of even more batshit My Little Pony lore. But hey, at least she didn't "DIE" die...

Hifumi: Unsurprisingly, this match was pretty clear cut. Though despite the one-sidedness in terms of how each combatants abilities stack up to each others, Mikan Tsumiki DID possess her own fair share of advantages.

Leona: To start with, Mikan's primary way of taking out enemies is using her needles to either rip them to shreds, or inject them with enough anesthetic to send them into comatose. Despite it still being pretty high when scaled to other characters in My Little Pony, Fluttershy's defense is easily her weakest stat, and she's evidently not immune to drugs...and I genuinely can't believe I just said that.

Hifumi: Tsumiki's best shot at winning this fight would be to catch Fluttershy off guard, and inject her with enough sleeping drugs that she falls unconscious and deliver an easy killing blow that way, assuming Fluttershy doesn't somehow die from the overdose. And with her evidently unmatched stealth and speed skills, as well as the fact that she's undoubtedly far more strategic than her Pegasus opponent, it was entirely possible she could get the jump on Fluttershy, who all things considered is very gullible and easily duped, and achieve exactly that!

Leona: That being said, while not IMPOSSIBLE, it was still very unlikely. It took SEVERAL shots, and even Mikan having to distribute basically all of the drugs contained in her claymore needle to render Nagito Komaeda unconscious. This is most likely because Nagito's Ultimate Hope abilities gave him an exponential increase in stamina that allowed him to resist the drugs for a long time, only taking effect with one final shot following several battles in succession.

Hifumi: And based on the calculations of her feats, as well as scaling her to Rainbow Dash in particular, it's likely that Fluttershy's max stamina was MUCH HIGHER than even that.

Leona: As were MOST of Fluttershy's stats at that. Mikan was fast, being able to outpace Nagito Komaeda, who possesses above superhuman speed and reactions, but Fluttershy was DEFINITELY faster, so much so that it's hard to even lock down her maximum speed. Scaling it to Rainbow Dash though, who she was able to keep up with when creating the tornado, we know she's at least faster than light.

Hifumi: In terms of physical strength, in both their base form and Despair and Flutterbat forms respectively, they might have been equal in terms of attack potency, but to reiterate, Mikan Tsumiki's primary weapon is a 150 lbs syringe, and though she IS able to wield it, she does so sluggishly, in a way that Fluttershy just can't NOT dodge easily.

Leona: Another advantage Mikan held was that based on the way the ability works, it's most likely that in her Despair Rage state, she would be immune to Fluttershy's stare, just like Discord and the Flash Bees were, since Mikan is also a very aggressive creature in this state that honestly relishes on fear more than it perturbs her.

Hifumi: However, what Mikan would NOT have been immune to was the Elements of Harmony, and there was no way in hell she was EVER going to beat Fluttershy in her Rainbow Power form. In fact, Fluttershy's power of the Element of Kindness basically countered every ability she had left.

Leona: Her powers could easily allow her to generate a barrier that blocks all of Mikan's weapons and projectiles, and would cleanse of her any lingering effects of the drugs if there were any. And to top it all off, Fluttershy's rainbow tornado would wipe every trace of evil and Despair away from Mikan, effectively taking away her Despair Rage state and every ability and bloodlust along with it. She could also just as easily use the Element of Harmony to turn Mikan to stone like with Discord and the other villains in MLP. You know, if Mikan really is struggling to cope with her past and the Despair still inside her, she should probably ask Fluttershy for therapy. Pretty sure it would do her wonders!

Hifumi: Let's be honest, if these two ACTUALLY met, there's NO WAY they would fight. They have a lot in common, with both of them being pretty wimpy, timid and sweet in their base forms, and not being able to fight at full potential unless angered or despaired. Despite their far from intimidating appearances, both Mrs. Tsumiki and Fluttershy have shown feats of strength and ability far beyond the average human or pony.

Leona: But that is the exact reason why Mikan falls so far of the victory here. One is a human, and the other is a pony. Mikan possesses no form of special combat abilities or powers, but Fluttershy has used her unique abilities alongside her friends to take down opponents like Discord and Tirek; both godly beings far beyond anything Mikan could ever HOPE to take down.

Hifumi: Mikan Tsumiki was a terrifying foe, but Fluttershy's total dominance and undefeatable power of Kindness and Friendship put the Ultimate Nurse in her stone-cold place.

Leona: Though she was Flutter-SHY of victory, fortunately for Mikan, forgiveness is the NEEDLE that knows how to mend!

THE WINNER IS FLUTTERSHY!

Next Time:

The world is under attack and the robot invaders are taking over! But don't worry! These two unlikely teenage heroes are going to step up, fight for and with their families, and take back humanities world! But when the odds collide, which one of these average teenage girls is gonna come out on top?

#Youtube #danganronpa survivor #danganronpa #mikan tsumiki #death battle #warriors of other worlds arc

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sappy-detective · 9 months

Text

personal HCs about the pregame cast because i have a very very specific image of them i like

ouma and kaede where best friends

shuichi and miu where friends

miu was a gyaru

maki and ouma where friends in elementary and jn. high (they go to different schools now)

ouma went to a really good school and he’s really smart.

ouma was nice. if you where nice to him he was nice to you. but he could also be a divk if he wanted

ouma *was* bullied in middle school but he wasn’t shy and scary. i feel like when he did get made fun of he would talk back a lot. even when getting beaten up (because he’s like what (hypothetically) under 5 foot and under 100Ibs) he would shit talk and make fun of them

ouma wasn’t shy he just keept to himself a lot but did have friends. just not a lot (he wasn’t a total loser he just didn’t want to talk to people)

kaede was very popular and she did tease peope a lot but only people she thought where mean themselves. like teasing bullies. she was friends with goths/emos/nerds/losers and didn’t like the the whole social hierarchy thing.

shuichi talked a lot and was socially awkward. not in a “i can’t talk to people” way but in a “i overshare and can’t pick up on social cues” way. he had a staring problem and would hold eye contact and talk about danganronpa/murder mystery’s and stuff and people thought he was creepy.

shuichi was home schooled up until he was like 14? and he didn’t like going out so the only people he would really talk to where his aunt and uncle so he doesn’t really talk well to kids his age.

#i have more but eh #obviously this isn’t cannon #but i just have my own AU for pregame #they’re basically my OCs now :3 #dangonronpa #shuichi saihara #kokichi ouma #drv3 #danganronpa #killing harmony #saiouma #danganronpa v3 killing harmony #oumasai #danganronpa kokichi #danganronpa au #pregame shuichi #pregame drv3

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raspbeyes · 1 year

Text

my v3 pregame hcs

another quick one while my wrist still dies

Kaede Akamatsu - A popular girl who conceals her more cynical side. Her classmates adore her for her confident and extraverted personality, and can motivate anyone to follow her strong and calm leadership. However, what people dont notice behind her level-headed fascade is that she is quite dubious and suspicious of others, often trying to find the true hidden despair humanity has so she can never be blind sighted by any harm

Shuichi Saihara - Known online as one of the most deductive arg detective, in real life, shuichi is nothing more than a danganronpa obsessed fan boy. Though a sweet albeit very awkward person, he can get a bit obssessive about talking about danganronpa, leaving non fans speechless by how much a nobody like him can talk abt the topic. He's intrigued by the thrill of murder mysteries danganronpa provides, and tries to apply said detective skills with args he finds online

Kaito Momota - The bully with a smile, Kaito has an odd reputation. Not outright aggressive, but definitely your average jock kind of character who would get violent if push comes to shove. But usually, he gives off a laid back attitude around his friends, which somehow makes him more formidable somehow with how confident he is. But behind the manly exterior, Kaito secretly wishes to find a true passion in life, fearing he is doomed to be nothing more than a high school has-been

Rantaro Amami - Returning after his successful run of season 52, Rantaro is a world wide celebrity for his heroic sacrafice in the final trial. But, he has no recollection of it, nor does he want to see any of the footage of the game. He is far more drained, tired of the constant media attention following him and talking about events he cannot even remember. Compared to his considerate pre-52 self, Rantaro is determined to stay alive and while he preached hope on tv, he has lost faith in others and acts like an aloof celebrity behind his dry smile

Maki Harukawa - Maki is a cool-headed girl, very unlike her aggressive in game self. nothing much can phase her, and while she has a calm smile, maki is truly seeking out her next thrill that can actually make her truly feel alive. As such, maki is quite atheltic, working out and very active in the school tennis club

Himiko Yumeno - Even by pg shuichi standards, himiko is quiet. Most take her for as mute since outside of the occassional peep, himiko refuses to talk. Himiko doesn't want to let others in, scared that others can hurt her, and she tries her best to stay in the sidelines and not draw attention to herself. She has a low opinion of herself, and she is just hoping that someone can be the one to reach out to her first

Angie Yonaga - The student activist of the school and class president known as a buzzkill, those outside her inner circle don’t tend to like Angie for her outspoken opinions on a variety of topics. Due to her religious values, she personally finds the idea of Danganronpa detestable, choosing to go to the interview in order to personally confront its creators and demand it be shut down. But to clarify angie doesn't believe her religous beliefs are above others, she simply wants to create a more peaceful world and has dreams of helping everyone

Gonta Gokuhara - Heir of the wealthy Gokuhara bloodline, Gonta has a lot of expectations placed onto him, and as such, he too has high expectations of the people around him as well. Composed and somewhat stoic, he is typically found reading a book in the courtyard, studying, or working out. He is a man of strict schedule imposed by his family, and as such, many find it best to ignore him. He is very perfectionistic and can be quick to criticize other. But in truth, little see how much Gonta applies those standards to himself, never believing himself to be enough for his prestigious family. In truth, Gonta is intimidated by others and feels himself not worthy to speak with them.

Kirumi Tojo - Kirumi Tojo is poor, but her suck-up and stuck-up attitude sure makes it hrd to have such an impression. Top of her grade in terms of academic test scores, Kirumi pushes herself to rise above her low family income to pursue greater things. She works incredibly hard and dedicates herself greatly to give the appearance of a refined student and student council vice president, growing an ego that she will rise above her class. Though well liked by teachers, some people can find her a tad egotistical underneath her high class demeanor. Her constant comparisons with others can be especially grating.

Kokichi Oma - A quiet class representative, Kokichi Oma does a lot to help his class out however he can. Through his wide smiles and numerous good deeds, he is often in charge of a lot of responsibilities, almost to his detriment. Never one for confrontation, he hides himself behind lies to appear more likable and helpful than he is: A classic person pleaser to the highest degree. But he’s not stupid, aware that he is often used, but he can’t push himself to say no to any requests. Behind all his non-judgemental words, he tries to suppress his more joke-ish attitude, sometimes seen stifling an immature laugh to himself.

Korekiyo Shinguji - Kind, studious, but reserved, Korekiyo has many walls up, especially with the fact that nobody has seen the second half of his face. Whispers surround the boy, all of which point to a headline from years ago of an unfortunate tragedy occurring with the death of an upcoming idol that shared the surname of shinguji. Many are convinced Korekiyo is the girl’s younger brother, but without being able to see half of his face and usually hiding behind his hair, there can be no confirmation. But when confronted with such rumors, Korekiyo’s usual collected attitude sours, and he would excuse himself. He appears to be haunted from a ghost of his past.

Miu Iruma - “The blonde, bimbo chick” is what most think when the name, Miu Iruma, is brought up. Popular and surrounded by numerous shallow friends, Iruma is known for her feisty, playful attitude, especially around the boys. But deep down, her aggression stems from her own perceived inferiority, despising that everybody assumes her as stupid and objectify her. It frustrates her to no end that she can’t be seen for anything past her looks, but with her fake friends surrounding her, she doesn’t feel like she can make such an odd complaint to anyone. More than anything, she wish she was spoken to, rather than treated as a joke.

Tenko Chabashira - Energetic and hyper, Tenko is sort of a weird one, always chattering about her latest obsession eagerly. She is not as popular as Miu or Kaede nor is she as smart as Kirumi, but she is just a girl with her own passions who wants to hang out with her friends with similar interests. She adores girl idol groups and devours discussion threads and Twitter posts, and just wants to nerd out about it.

Ryoma Hoshi - A delinquent with not a lot going for him, Hoshi is isolated from others with his jaded attitude. As they say, he’s been on the wrong side of the tracks, and usually doesn’t show up to class, typically skipping or found loitering on school grounds. Not many people give him a chance, his reputation exceeding him but he doesn’t seem to mind it. But, when you get to know him, he shows to give good advice and likes any company he can crack a good joke with.

Keebo - Keebo is created by Team Danganronpa and doesn't know about much of life outside of that. He is only loyal and can obey what he is told to do.

Tsumugi Shirogane - A stressed out DR writer in dire who finally has managed to score the role as lead producer for the latest season after her success with season 52. She is dedicated to her job both as a part of its creation but also as a fan, belieivng that her sole purpose is to continue the danganronpa legacy.

#danganronpa #drv3 #pregame drv3 #pregame shuichi #pregame kaito #pregame kokichi #danganronpa v3 #killing harmony

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batw1nggg · 2 months

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I'm curious on your opinion of this theory:

https://behind-xemnas.tumblr com/post/172959032331/theory-nagito-komaeda-returned-to-being-ultimate

i do assume this theory is just for fun but i’m still going to nitpick at it because its entire basis is on a fundamental misunderstanding of the way komaeda’s behavior is affected by the environment he’s in (for anyone that doesn’t want to go read the whole post — the theory is that komaeda is so fucked up in the game but far less homicidal in the anime because he somehow became re-brainwashed once the killing game began, explaining the difference in behavior)

op points out that komaedas behavior changes from calming to insane once the killing game begins, and they don’t seem to understand that this drastic change is because komaeda has experienced a change in environment. before monokuma appeared, the island was peaceful, and so komaeda was acting calmer; however, it turned into a life or death situation within just hours of their arrival, an extremely high stress situation. the plan with teruteru that komaeda rigged to get himself killed was komaeda’s natural response to stress, in the same way YOUR natural response to stress might be to crawl up in your bed and cry. but komaeda is deeply emotionally repressed, and so his stress responses aren’t conventional. he’s logical and intelligent, he wants to rig the situation for the sake of hope.

compare it to island mode. komaeda’s still fucked up, but he doesn’t plan any elaborate murder suicide schemes. because he’s not in a stressful environment. and so there’s nothing pushing him to.

this weird brainwashing theory is not “the only way komaeda makes sense.” komaeda DOES make sense, if you take the time to actually analyze his mind

evidence op claimed that i’d like to debunk:

- the swirly eye thing. in danganronpa, swirling eyes does not equate to brainwashed, it equates to a feeling of despair; the reason why everyone had swirly eyes when they were being brainwashed was because the brainwashing forced them into a state of despair. they use junko as evidence and yes junko was ult despair but she never. she never brainwashed herself 😭😭😭 she was never a remnant?

- ai junko would just not single out komaeda like that sorry. he was one of the most boring remnants lol. there’s no reason for her to she dont gaf about him

- the brainwashing didn’t make komaeda more obsessed with hope. “but he doesn’t seem to be obsessed with it in the anime and when he gets brainwashed he gets real obsessed w hope” he very clearly was obsessed w it from the start im sorry like he talks about it all the time. they just dont hound in on it in despair arc because they already did in dr2 + run time limits + in a non stressful environment (hpa school life) komaeda doesn’t need to rely on his hope obsession as a coping mechanism as much, but when he is put in a stressful environment (like being fucking BRAINWASHED) he needs to fall back on that coping mechanism

- the brainwashing made him more obsessed with despair, in fact — it made him want to create despair with the justification that it was “for the sake of hope.” brainwashed komaeda was meant to be obsessed with both sides.

- izuru does not care about komaeda as a variable specifically either. we see his disinterestedness in the boat scene after he’s able to analyze komaeda’s psyche. the whole point for him was to create a battle between hope and despair to see which was more worth his time; keeping komaeda despaired rigs the battle

- claiming he committed suicide because he was brainwashed takes away from the meaning of the act. he did it because he wanted his life to mean something, and he thought that the only way he could do that was via grand sacrifice. a pathetic attempt to give himself meaning in the final days of his life expectancy. if you think about it, all three characters that achieve ult hope status don’t do it without some sort of self sacrifice. this theory takes away that theme by taking away komaedas full consciousness of his actions. he did it all of his OWN ACCORD and that is why its so much more tragic.

- komaeda did not kill for the sake of killing like mikan did. he was TRYING TO GET HIMSELF KILLED. IT WAS A SUICIDE PLAN NOT A MURDER PLAN. also mikan killed people she was attached to, teruteru had no emotional significance to komaeda, he just happened to be in the wrong place at the right time. komaeda wanted to get the killings started for the sake of seeing hope overcome despair.

ok yeah overall this theory is stupid 👍 it’s not even interesting to explore and takes away lots of the themes and nuances of his character. dr3 isnt a good reference point for komaedas writing either because again we only see small snippets of his hpa life. the story’s focus is not on him, it’s more balanced on class 77b’s school life as a whole

#long post #ko’s danganronpa ramblings #asks #nagito komaeda

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theamityelf · 3 months

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So, I don't know how universal this is to everyone's high school experience, but at my high school there was an explicit rule that we weren't supposed to let anyone in from the side doors. All doors into the school were locked except for the front entrance, so if someone stepped outside for whatever reason, they would be locked out unless they had a friend hold the door for them or made the full walk back to the front of the building. And it was emphasized to us that it was not okay to let someone in through the side doors, because suppose that person turns out to be a murderer, etc.

All of this to say, one time I was out in the (otherwise empty) hallway during class time, because I had a hall pass to go to another teacher's room for something, and I saw someone outside the door trying to wave at me to let them in. (They seemed to be high school age, so they could have just been other students who had accidentally gotten locked out for innocent reasons; as I recall there were two or three of them.) And since I didn't recognize them and I didn't want to be culpable for letting them in if they were axe murderers, I just kind of kept walking to my destination. Maybe with an apologetic look.

(A teacher who I hadn't met before saw this take place, and she actually pulled me aside and took me to the vice principal to tell him that I had followed the rule, and he gave me a restaurant coupon as a reward.)

All of this to say, I hadn't heard of Danganronpa back then, but thinking back on the incident, I feel a spiritual connection with Kiyotaka Ishimaru. I feel like I made Taka proud, for better or worse, lol.

#danganronpa #kiyotaka ishimaru #school #high school

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itsbenedict · 3 months

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Bullet Proof: Postmortem

Waaaay back in the day, when I was 19 and I'd just discovered Dangan Ronpa (back when we put the space in the title, because all we had was the Orenronen LP and we called Ultimates "Super High-School Levels"), I decided to do my own. That was the heyday of forum adventures on the MSPA Forums, and there were no standards. I didn't know how to draw, but I decided to learn. I wanted to make a thing!

I got a good ways into it, honestly! It went through a few format changes, skipping over a couple cases in the middle in an abridged format on Tumblr, but I'd finally found my groove for the fourth case, playable from the perspective of the murderer. It was going well!

Then the MSPA Forums got hacked and the admins didn't keep any backups and everything was lost.

So that sucked! And once it became clear they were never going to recover the forums due to a mix of security incompetence and not giving a shit, I didn't really have a choice but to try and reboot it. I'd lost all the text, apart from a few garbled pages from a corrupted archive snapshot.

But... I've got way too much else I want to do at this point, and it's not looking too likely I'm going to have the time to come back to it. So if you want to know everything about what happened and where it was going...

You've clicked the readmore. So you do want to know all that. Here goes! Activate theme music.

You remember how it opened, right? It was a forum adventure, and at the time, I asked the readers to select an SHSL talent and gender as the protagonist entered the American branch of Hope's Peak Academy.

That was diegetic. "Alice Bayko" was an SHSL Impostor, or- I actually kinda waffled on having her not technically be SHSL anything, as she infiltrated the school with a false identity. She has, however, forgotten this, and her original identity and mission, leaving her with nothing but the mask. I believe there was a scene planned, or maybe a scene that did happen, I forget- where Alice would be called upon to demonstrate some sort of stage magic trick... and completely not know how to do any of that.

But what was she up to?

Well, that's a good question, with a complicated answer. Let's start pulling back the layers, here.

Seventeen students, and of the seventeen... somewhere between six and nine of them could be considered secret masterminds. Hilariously, I seem to have ordered this old banner issue in order of who's the most technically the ultimate mastermind, which was very cheeky of me. Would've been fun if someone ever caught that.

Let's start with...

Mastermind Level 1: Disguise

This creepy kid, SHSL Prodigy Billy Bookerton, was supposed to be the original secret mastermind in charge of the school. As came up in the adventure proper, this iteration of Hope's Peak was intended to be a safehouse from the ongoing despair apocalypse pictured in the Danganronpa canon. The son of the headmaster, he would control their Monokuma puppet and be in charge of faking to the outside world that this Monokuma-themed airship was in fact a murder-happy despair cult (like everywhere else on Earth somehow.)

This was not supposed to be a secret to the student body. And this 27-year-old man was not supposed to wake up in the body of a malnourished child and pose as a student. After events occurred, he found himself like this, with a note in his own handwriting instructing him to lay low and play this role.

What events occurred?

Mastermind Level 2: Blackmail

Also explained in the adventure proper, since these two were culprit and victim of the playable case 4: Gwendolyn and Ursula Schultheiss, SHSL Sysadmin and SHSL Retro Gamer nothing at all. Gwen was admitted to Hope's Peak on the basis of an actual talent, and pretty quickly gained control of their computer systems, sneaking Ursula in under the guise of Sakura Aran, and learning about the plan to escape Ultimate Despair by disguising the school and taking to the sky.

She thought that plan was really stupid.

Specifically, she thought Ultimate Despair was a flash in the pan, and it was ridiculous to think that some student riots all the way in Japan posed some sort of apocalyptic threat. (In her defense, this is a reasonable thing to think! It is ridiculous! Danganronpa's worldbuilding is fucking nonsense! But unfortunately for her, we're rolling with it.)

So she and Ursula hatched a plan to get rich. Hope's Peak is full of the progeny of the super-rich, like the Bright conglomerate. Obviously people like this would have loads of incriminating secrets, with which they could be blackmailed, and by which they would deserve to be blackmailed because screw those nepo babies. The plan was to run a Deception Game, not a Killing Game- they'd steal Billy's remote-control scary apocalypse terrorist, and pit everyone against each other in a contest to uncover each other's darkest secrets.

Once they had the dirt, they'd pretend to lose control and land the ship somewhere safe and sound, and Hope's Peak could deal with the scandal of the Monokuma hijacking and the consequences of their bonkers overreaction to some airhead fashionista's trendy protest.

If you recall, their plan went like this:

Each of them assumed that the other had somehow betrayed them and hijacked the school's systems on their own- Ursula retained control of the damaged Monokuma puppet, and Gwen retreated to her secret closet base to try and wrest control of the systems back from whatever super-hacker Ursula found to compromise her control. It took Gwen a few chapters (and accidentally murdering her sister) to realize that there was a...

Mastermind Level 3: Reality TV

It all started with SHSL Heir Henry Bright, heir to the Bright Conglomerate and active vice director of the company. Specifically, he directed vice. The Bright Conglomerate, in his opinion, did things too by-the-book, and were passing up big opportunities for growth in the organized crime sector. He was fostering connections with the Hit Deck (which led to the altercation that led to his and Dominique Martine's deaths in case 2), and...

Unlike Gwen, he didn't think the emergence of Ultimate Despair was nonsense. No, it was a growth opportunity. His plan was to invite a film crew to the airship and broadcast an exciting (fake) killing game to pander to this emerging despair-based market! With illicit funds provided by his contact in the Hit Deck (in exchange for his help securing a place on the ark for the Hit Deck's boss and trusted confidantes, posing as students), he assembled a team. Bribed some students, located an SHSL Doctor and some effects artists for realistic murder effects, did some networking, and...

...well, word gets around. The team he put together had bigger ambitions. A creative vision. One that had no room for executive meddling. They cut him out of the production team and forced him into the cast.

(I'm honestly not sure if this layer of convolution was necessary- I was on the fence about cutting him from the cast. The show's team might've found out about the school just because Gwen and Sakura screwed up the school's stealth measures. He's gotta kind of be there to explain the Hit Deck's presence, though, since aside from Dom none of them were actual Ultimates.)

Realer Reality TV

Before I reveal the members of the final mastermind tier, let's go over how they did this.

I never ended up using this portrait, but this is Davi Rossi, SHSL Doctor, though he prefers "Ultimate Necromancer". He's a graduate of the original Hope's Peak in Japan, and his technology is the cornerstone of the whole setup here- underneath the school, in the restricted areas in the body of the ship, he has a whole secret lab with vats of glowy chemicals and fancy futuristic surgical tools.

He can bring back the dead.

Well, sort of. He can do all sorts of repairs on ordinary tissues- lose a limb, get a vital organ mashed up, bleed out, he can fix that. He can make alterations to the body, too- such as surgically reverting someone's apparent age, or implanting remote-control death chips, or strategically weakening someone's skull.

He can even fix a certain degree of brain damage- the kind of stuff that might occur if you suffer blunt force trauma or total deoxygenation, where the brain is still mostly intact.

As a result, most victims are recoverable. When someone dies, he can bring them back again and again. However: he can't fully reconstitute the brain, and he has a number of limitations when it comes to working with it:

If the brain is completely torn apart or otherwise destroyed, he cannot revive the victim.

He can't directly mind-control anyone, nor can he insert false memories.

He can delete and rearrange memories, but not read minds, and memory deletion is episodic- he can't mess with specific facts, only spans of time.

I think I... also made an exception so he could delete specific people? Which is clunky and doesn't really make sense in hindsight.

There's still a lot you can do by cutting up and rearranging the filmstrip of someone's memory- but except in one specific case, he only ever really used it to delete the last loop.

In case it wasn't obvious, this isn't the first killing game. This show has multiple seasons. It's been going a while- and while injuries that destroy the brain are rare, they're not nonexistent, and so there's quite a few students who died before the story began. There used to be a lot more students! That's why all the dorm rooms have bunkbeds!

And there's also unfortunately the one who received a fatal injury in this loop by blowing himself up with an improvised explosive device. Sorry, Mill!

(There's actually only a few people physically present running the show, since the show's been running for years now and they found that they really didn't need more than a skeleton crew to run it- Davi and some student plants, along with Monokuma drones and countless hidden cameras, are all that's necessary for production on the ground. There's no adult film crew present on the ship.)

(♪ Kids with guns. Kids with guns. Taking over. But they won't be long. ♪)

Davi is also responsible for rigging up the masterminds with the mental control rigs for the two Monokumas- and has a third Monokuma of his own, who was going to show up to treat Martha's injury during case 4, I think in literally the very next update planned before the forums exploded.

So who are the people in control of these Monokuma knockoffs?

Mastermind Level 5: Case 5

All that I just mentioned about Davi? You learn about this in the fifth case, after case 4 in which you play as either Sakura or Gwen after killing their sister and trying to avoid getting caught in the trial. You can't win case 4, but you can successfully stall and bullshit long enough for the trial to be interrupted by a sudden explosion before you can be executed.

Prior to case 4, Billy has disappeared into a secret passage, trying to track down the mastermind. Likewise, Flopsy-Turvy, Alice's rabbit, has also disappeared into a secret passage. Billy remains missing during case 4's trial.

After the explosion, the Monokumas call off the trial and lead the whole class to Davi's secret lab, which is the site of a set of murders.

Davi has been murdered via various small lacerations all over his body, including a slit throat.

Billy has been blown to bits by an explosion.

If Gwen or Sakura was executed during the trial, their corpse is found on a table in the lab.

Flopsy-Turvy, who was a robot all along, has been reduced to mechanical smithereens.

Violette, not dead anymore, but unable to speak aloud due to an incompletely healed throat injury

Some completely unfamiliar redhead kid, who doesn't know jack about anything and doesn't know how he got here.

The two survivors of this scene are naked save for some towels they found, and appear to have been spilled out from a couple of big glowy specimen tanks which were broken in the explosion that killed Billy and Flopsy. More on them later.

The subsequent investigation reveals all that stuff I just told you about Davi, blowing the setup wide open. In the course of that investigation, two of the masterminds find themselves confessing their involvement. After all- Davi's dead. There's no way they can run another season without someone to bring people back to life!

One in particular confesses before the other one- she doesn't care anymore, and she's happy to watch her co-conspirator squirm to try to avoid revealing his evil machinations to the people he desperately wants to think he's cool.

Lilakali Bhallu and Raymond Rizzini are my favorites. They suck so much. They hate each other quite a lot, and have gotten together and broken up like three different times. Their collective theme song is No Children by The Mountain Goats. They're like 25 at this point, stuck in the bodies of the teenagers they were when the show started filming and they fully agreed to be part of the production.

Why? Well, Lilakali hates everyone and enjoys seeing them turn on each other like rabid wolves repeatedly- and Raymond craves acceptance and is using his memory privileges and surveillance abilities to try over and over again to be Popular In High School (to no avail.) They're both pretty pathetic people.

Notably, they are both real students who're supposed to be here. I don't remember if I ever had Lilakali make any predictions, and she'll insist she's just making shit up, but I was gonna have her predictions all come true, because the Fortune Teller thing is a real talent. And Raymond really can make a pretty mean burger. (Cheekily, that old Tumblr post was supposed to have taken place in a previous season- you might notice Gwen in the background, who in this iteration was never convinced to leave her room for meals, instead sneaking out at night to raid the cafeteria.)

Lilakali also has an Edgy Backstory- she grew up in the circus, apprenticed under her grandmother, who refused to let her socialize with kids her age. She was supposed to learn the family divining techniques, not dance around like some harlot with a pack of urchins! Her grandma taught her to hate the world, and herself, and accidentally also her grandmother. One day, in a moment of perfect nihilist clarity, she took a Sixlizard cigarette lighter out of the trash, wandered amongst the tents, and burned down the entire circus, killing her grandma in the process. She looks back on that moment fondly as the happiest she's ever been.

Anyway. Those two are my favorites, but they're not the ultimate masterminds. In fact... they're quite sure there's supposed to be a third mastermind, and they suspect this third mastermind of having erased their memories of them and killing Davi. They can tell their memories were edited- they're fully aware of how the tech works and what the signs are, and they can tell there's big ugly gaps and gashes in their recollection of the past. Someone was missing, and Davi was being all cagey and weird about it. And last loop...

Well, what happened last loop is the direct cause of case 5. And at the end of the investigation... the two Monokumas go dead, and one giant Monokuma shows up, furious that Davi is dead and forcing the students to go to trial one more time. This will be the final execution- catching Davi's murderer.

Mastermind Level 6: Sailing No More

It doesn't take long into trial 5 for the identity of this giant Monokuma to be revealed- it's a mechsuit with a living person in it, not a robot, and he unmasks himself during the trial without too much objection once people start questioning... that confused redhead kid who they found at the crime scene. That character introduces himself as... the Super High-School Level Pilot, Nolan Cubbins.

Wait. What?

Didn't that guy die?

Well, you see--

--oh, shit, I forgot Tumblr has an image limit of 30 images per post. Uh, gonna have to break this up into two posts. Continue reading here!

#bullet proof #bullet proof spoilers. like all of them

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weightedblankettt · 11 months

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INTRODUCING… SUPER DANGANRONPA DESPAIR TIME 2: (HEAD)CANONS!!

It took me WAY too long to get these done…

// drugs, murder, typical danganronpa cw’s, alcohol

Under the cut!

——————

ACE MARKEY (HIBIKI OTONOKOJI):

Ace sings in the shower. He likes to sing his own songs, but sometimes, he’ll sing the pieces of his favorite idols when Nico or his parents aren’t home.

It was Ace who originally bought his and Nico’s matching earrings. They were a birthday present for both of them because it was the second year since their parents had stopped bothering to celebrate.

Although he is insecure about his weight due to the idol industry, he still teases Nico for theirs. He’s well aware that it’s wrong, but he projects his insecurities onto them to avoid dealing with his own problems. Ace wishes he could take back everything he’s said to them, sometimes.

He was a rather popular athlete at his old school. He wasn’t very close with his friends outside of sports, but he took them very seriously. Even if they would bully him for having a girlish hobby on the side.

Secretly, he loves pop songs. He especially likes romantic songs, because he’s a bit of a hopeless romantic on the side. He will never admit to this, though, and will curse you out if you try to expose him for it.

AREI NAGEISHI (SHINJI KASAI):

Arei has a burn scar, vertically across her forehead. She’s a bit insecure about it and uses what’s left of her bangs to cover them up.

She’s a lesbian, which is apparent with her inability to talk to girls. Arei never ends up being able to finish a sentence whenever she addresses a woman, and she always goes into a nervous shutdown after a while.

She and her sisters lived with her mother, while she wanted to live with her father. She was allowed visitation, but she was the only one that ever visited him. Her family is a toxic hellscape, and it has been since she was a child.

Her speaking voice is absurdly loud. Despite the high pitch of her voice itself, she consistently speaks in a loud and boisterous manner. It’s ear-grating to everyone else.

In terms of her academics, Arei is a complete failure. She’s even managed to get a D+ in Lunch, which nobody in her class knew was even remotely possible.

ARTURO GILES (YURI KAGARIN):

Arturo is a heavy alcoholic. He’s an experienced wine connoisseur and has a lot of prior background with drinking in general. He’s even half-Russian, which he consistently flexes.

He’s only been to space once. It was the best day of his life, in his opinion. And it was all thanks to the beautiful women around him! And some men, but he digresses.

His view of women and men is similar to Yuri’s. He sees women as beautiful and praises their very existence. Meanwhile, any men in his vicinity are disregarded as utterly disgusting, and he sees them as ugly.

The halo around his head is just a hat. He bought it as a souvenir from an academy and wears it around all the time as a result. The planets are able to be spun on their wire. He does it a lot, it’s rather fun.

One of his pastimes is watching Veronika’s horror movies. He is a big, big fan of her work, and he consistently bothers her about it. Speaking of, he’s also a fan of J’s hostess work, but not as much as he is of Veronika’s acting.

CHARLES CUEVAS (SYOBAI HASHIMOTO):

Charles is vastly multilingual. He can speak the more common languages, like Spanish, French, Japanese, and Russian. But he can also speak Dutch, Kawishana, Mandarin, and even more than you can count on both hands.

He always carries around a hunting knife. Despite his phobia of blood, he consistently manages to threaten others. While the extent of his phobia is greatly lessened due to his career, it still affects him.

He still practices chemistry, although for illegal uses. He even had a meth lab in his old place of residence, before he was forced to flee.

Because of his frequent homelessness, he is incapable of basic chores: He can’t do his own laundry, he can’t cook, clean, or even make his own bed. He’s used to living a rather practical lifestyle and putting minimal effort into anything except his career.

Smoking is one of his worst habits, but he still continues to do it. Charles always carries a pack of cigarettes and a lighter for whenever he gets stressed out and takes a smoke when he needs to.

DAVID CHIEM (YUKI MAEDA):

David’s favorite food is easy-make oatmeal. However, on days when he’s feeling particularly energized, he’ll make himself a bowl of meat-flavored ramen, and curl up on his couch to eat it.

He has a positive front, but his supply of optimism is limited. Pessimism is his true nature, but he forces himself to stay happy in spite of the tragedy surrounding him. Despite his luck, he feels as if he’s powerless, surrounded by people infinitely more talented than he is.

He will always choose to be a fire type in role-playing games. David really likes having fire abilities, for some unknown reason, and will always pick fire without fail. Pokémon, Dungeons and Dragons, anything you can think of.

Bad luck is common for David, to the point where his misfortune is expected of him. Similar to Teruko in the original DRDT, his luck differs from Yuki’s, in that his luck is more of a curse than a blessing. This is subverted with Utsuro, or in this case, The Angel of Death, who takes on the bad misfortune of others and blesses them with heavenly luck.

With his spare time, David usually hangs around Teruko and the twins. They’ve become a small group of friends, considering Ace’s open nature, combined with Nico’s timid one and Teruko’s reliability. He views them as his closest friends and wants them all to be happy.

EDEN TOBISA (IROHA NIJIUE):

Eden is an avid reader of manga, especially shōnen, despite being a girl. She’s always found the action more invigorating than in other mangas, but she’ll indulge herself in shojo manga as well. All of it is good in her eyes.

Her family is her main source of pressure. From their disappointment in her self-expression to their obsession with keeping up the family name, she’s not one to be open with herself.

Art is her passion, but she wants to make different art than the pieces she’s expected to. While her family is focused on hyper-realistic artwork, Eden wants to draw more in cartoony styles. Her dream is to release a manga of her own one day, so she can make her parents proud of her.

Without even thinking about it, Eden can spend hours upon hours drawing in her sketchbook. It’s a wonder how she gets enough sleep with the way she can spend up to fifteen hours or more straight, moving her pen with a smile on her face.

Even though Eden has contact lenses, she refuses to wear them. She believes that her glasses make her look more cute, and she wants to keep that image of herself.

HU JING (HAJIME MAKUNOUCHI):

Hu cannot operate machinery for the life of her. No matter what kind and no matter how she does it, she always ends up accidentally breaking something due to her inability to use it correctly.

She has a daily exercise schedule, neatly planned out to keep her strength. She usually ends up training with Arei because of their similar lifestyles, but she tends to upkeep herself by going on morning jogs, before excusing herself to the gym.

Despite being a boxer, she still enjoys classical Chinese music. She still has an affinity for the zither, although she cannot play it. She’s very in tune with her culture, despite not dressing in traditional clothing because of the nature of her occupation.

She hates the look of hospitals and will avoid them at all costs. She’s had terrible experiences with illnesses in her childhood, and she’ll avoid them at all costs, even if she needs to. She takes very good care of her health as a result.

The hat on her head is used to cover her eyes from the sun. She has protective sunglasses tucked under the sleeves of her jacket, but her eyes are sensitive to strong light because of her past illnesses.

J MORENO-ROSALES (YORUKO KABUYA):

J’s cooking skills are unmatched by anyone else in the cast. Because of her hostess work, she’s used to having to act as a waitress at parties, especially for impatient customers.

Mariabella Rosales, her own mother, is her most frequent customer. It annoys her to no end, but ever since she was a child, she was used to having to attend her mother’s parties, working day in and day out to ensure the happiness of her clientele.

She enjoys singing, but doesn’t practice often. Her voice isn’t exactly as perfect as Ace’s, but she still has fun whenever she joins in on karaoke or other activities similar to it.

Due to the nature of her job, J is able to tell if someone’s drunk or not. It’s a sixth sense for her, almost, and she gets really pissed off if someone lies about being drunk. She will not hesitate to scold you for it.

She prefers masculine-style clothing. It’s more satisfying to do her work in a suit and tie, rather than a dress for her. It might catch some people by surprise, but she really couldn’t care less about it. Her fur coat is her favorite accessory.

LEVI FONTANA (SETSUKA CHIEBUKURO):

Levi’s Devil’s Eye allows him to record his past memories. This is basically the same as Setsuka’s. He’s more hesitant to use it than she is, though, considering he has a higher moral standpoint than she does.

His past is darker than he lets on, but he covers it up with a joke or two. Despite his morbid sense of humor, he truly wants to leave the past as it is. He doesn’t want to dig himself a hole far too deep, and so he’s unwilling to use his Devil’s Eye much.

Party planning is one of his biggest hobbies. He finds joy in organizing events for his friends to enjoy, especially regarding the twins, J, or Veronika. He finds that performing puts them right in their element, and always encourages the three of them to shine brighter than before.

Fatherly behavior has always been part of his personality. Levi gravitates towards taking on a supportive role to the rest of his class, especially in relation to some of the students who need it the most, like Ace, Eden, or Rose. He stays away from the more mature students, like Charles and Whit.

Birthdays are a foreign concept for Levi. He’s never had his actual birthday celebrated by other people, and he’s almost forgotten what day his birthday is on. He doesn’t really mind, though, he prefers celebrating his friends’ birthdays, anyway.

MAI AKASAKI (REI MEKARU):

Mai’s hair is cut short. She found no use for her long braid after the events of her first game, so she discarded her hair with a pair of scissors. She’s not the Ultimate Professor for nothing.

She tends to antagonize her students in order to get them to succeed. Although it hurts her to act cruelly, she instills a desire for her students to prove her wrong whenever she criticizes them in order to allow them to flourish. Not one student has ever failed her classes.

Her and Xander are adoptive siblings. Her family adopted Xander after he was orphaned, and they’ve been inseparable ever since, especially after surviving a killing game together.

The floral tattoo on her arm is technically against her school’s dress code, so she always dresses around it. Her favorite part of preparing for the day is finding a different accessory to cover up her tattoo, so she always feels that it helps complete her style.

Although she needs glasses to see, she refuses to wear them. In contrast to Eden, Mai doesn’t want to wear her glasses, as she can do her job somewhat fine without them. That, and she finds her own pair unappealing.

MIN JEUNG (NIKEI YOMIURI):

Min’s handwriting is mainly sleek, yet rushed, cursive. She learned how to write like that because of the fast-paced dialect of some of her interviewees, She needed to write fast, and so she learned.

Her dedication to her work was spurred on by her parents. Growing up, she was always obsessed with learning the truth about other people. Her reasons for this are unknown, but her devotion is seemingly serious.

The facade that she puts on is meant to attract the people that she’s interviewing. She has an excitable, eager persona, but she’s more cynical and distrustful under that. She simply wants to appear happier to goad her clients into talking more.

Her memorization skills extend to even the thickest books possible. She can commit all the research she does on the people she interviews to her memory, just so she has accurate questions to ask. And in turn, she can memorize their answers for future reference.

Black is her favorite color of pen, but she has many multicolor pens that she uses. Chartreuse, vermillion, navy, indigo, basically any color, she’ll have it. She even takes joy in pushing down all the buttons of the ten-colors-in-one pens she has.

NICO HAKOBYAN (KANADE OTONOKOJI):

Nico really likes heavy metal and rock songs. They love them to such a degree, that they prefer them over the happier tunes that they and Ace make together. However, they’d never trade their songs for the world.

Despite how close they are, Nico has not told Ace about their struggles with their identity. Although they prefer the terms they/them, they still gladly accept the term brother. Ace still doesn’t know that Nico wants to use a different set of pronouns.

Their body count is 74, but they can’t recall that exactly. Because of their desire to keep Ace just as how they were when they were kids, they’ve lost count of just how many people have fallen to get to this point. They know that number will go up with their parent’s death, as it’s the finale of their amazing plan.

Perfectionism is natural to them. They master anything they set their mind to, purely because anything subpar, to them, is a failure. Mostly, they attempt to support Ace’s endeavors by picking up a supportive role in his dreams, so they’ve picked up a few talents.

With their affinity for animals, Nico’s one talent outside of Ace is pet therapy. Of course, this means that Nico didn’t murder Ace’s pet dog, as said in the original SDRA2. They actually shared a passion for horses at one point, but quickly dropped it when Ace dubbed them creepy.

ROSE LACROIX (KOKORO MITSUME):

Rose always has her tablet on her, no matter what. She has a rainbow-colored case on it, despite her dull personality. There are even a few games on there to keep annoying people occupied.

Being treated like a kid is bothersome for Rose. Despite being one of the shorter members amongst the cast, she expresses annoyance at being babied by other people. She prefers to be left to herself, but occasionally joins in on large gatherings.

Reading is one of her prime hobbies, but she doesn’t find time for it much. Between her manifestos and extensive research papers on human emotions, she doesn’t have much time to actually invest herself in a book.

Veronika and her hang out often. While Rose is unsure of her feelings towards the actress, she often can be spotted around her and Arturo. She often takes note of their relationship, using it as a study on extreme emotions.

With her vast training in psychology, she can effectively read the emotions and thoughts of other people. She does it so often that it usually pushes other people away from her, so she’s very bad at social interaction.

TERUKO TAWAKI (SORA):

Teruko is an avid fan of caffeine, especially when it comes to chocolate, or coffee. She will never pass up a free coffee, even if it’s coming from a shady place, or from someone like Whit or Charles.

Her hair graying is something not even she’s aware of the reason for. She feels as though it’s right on her, but the reason as to why this is doesn’t seem to exist in her mind. A lot of things don’t make sense to her due to her amnesia, but she can only assure everyone that she’s not a bad person.

She has conflicted relationships with the rest of the students. Similarly to David, she feels out of place and unwelcome in her class, although she can’t even remember her Ultimate Talent. Even her own last name is foreign to her. Even though she considers them all her friends, she’s unsure if that feeling is reciprocated.

Occasionally, she’d like to try out some girlier clothing, but she hasn’t had the time to experiment. With the ongoing mystery of where her lost memories have gone, and the dangerous situation she’s found herself in, it hasn’t been her top priority as of right now. She often gushes about this with Nico.

Although she has no talent, she makes an effort to indulge in her classmates’. She’ll take inventory with Xander, watch J begin to mix a drink or two, or talk about Charles’ business deals.

VERONIKA GREBENSHCHIKOVA (EMMA MAGOROBI):

Veronika’s specialty is in horror movies. Although she acts in other genres, her main focus is in thrillers, psychological horrors, and slasher films. She loves the art of horror in general, and will make any excuse to partake in it.

Ace and Arturo tend to become her main victims of her amateur psychology. Being inspired from her time spent with Rose, she likes to pick their brains apart. Ace is freaked out by her antics, while Arturo’s status as a fan makes him easier to talk to. Not in an exploitative way.

Voice acting is something she’s recently been getting into. She has a natural talent for mimicking other people’s voices, and she’s landed one or two roles in animated films. Of course, both of them are horror films.

Most of her on-stage appearances are done by herself. She does her own hair, her own makeup, her own personality adjustments, pretty much anything she can think of. She can even do full faces of makeup in half an hour.

Puns are her favorite activity, even if everyone else hates them. She can never stop herself from making a bad joke whenever she can, to the horror of Hu. It annoys everyone else to no end.

WHIT YOUNG (MIKADO SANNOJI):

Whit mainly deals in thunder and lightning magic. He prefers it over anything else, but occasionally dabbles in other kinds, including stage magic. He doesn’t like to use his magic for mundane reasons, however, so he doesn’t perform basic tricks.

Because of his status as the mastermind, he often converses with MonoTV. They talk about whatever comes to mind, although Whit finds the catdog creature to be rather boring.

Joking around is still a big part of his personality, even if he does it in a more regal way. He has a teasing relationship with people like Charles and Hu, although his more sinister side shows itself when he toys with the members of Void. Levi, Veronika, Min, and Eden, often become the target of his antics.

Love is still dear to his heart, and he sometimes ships his classmates. Whit doesn’t push the boundaries, but he often makes a nudge in others’ directions if he thinks they’d make a suitable couple, making teasing remarks to ease the tension. Or, that’s what he thinks it does.

The big bad mastermind’s favorite sleepwear has… heart-print pajamas. They’re his favorite kind of print to wear, and he always wants to incorporate hearts into his outfits, no matter what. MonoTV doesn’t let him, though. It shatters his heart!

XANDER MATTHEWS (TERUYA OTORI):

Xander’s favorite pastime other than his job is tailoring. He’s always caught up on the latest fashion trends, so he can make clothing from scratch with only a basic idea. Despite his physical strength being rather high, having a “delicate” hobby like tailoring tends to come as a shock to other people.

Busy schedule or not, Xander hasn’t ever missed a day of school. His attendance is perfect, and he always shows up right on time. No matter if his sister is late, no matter if his business is undergoing stress, he’s always right on time.

Rainbows are his favorite aesthetic. He shares this with Rose, and the two end up talking about them a lot. He even has one on his shirt, which he greatly enjoys looking at. He’ll even ask Rose to play games on her tablet because he likes the case.

David’s mere presence is something that Xander doesn’t know how to feel about. Something about him makes Xander bittersweet, although he can’t place his finger on why. It’s almost as if he should be remembering something, but his mind runs blank…

An accident involving his right eye back in his old days of being a merchant has caused it to stop functioning. Although the exact details are lost to him, he can recall that he suffered a serious injury and it had to be removed. He wears an eyepatch over it now, and it’s always been there.

???:

They don’t know it yet, but he will be brought back, one way or another. I’ll make sure of it.

Mark my words. Whether it be Utsuro or the Angel of Death.

Tsurugi Kinjo. Remember this name…

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thebibliomancer · 5 months

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DR1 Minigames

I finished Danganronpa 1 Trigger Happy High School Students of Despair the main game so here's how the minigames land for me.

Nonstop Debate

Shoot the words out of someone's mouth.

The real meat of the game mechanics. Not terribly difficult. The major difficulty is when you have to steal a statement and then go back in time and shoot it at someone before it was ever said. How do you do this, Makoto?

A lot of the white noise is fun to read.

Protagonist centered gameplay makes everyone else seem either dumb or like they're making Makoto do all the work on a class project (looking at you, Byakuya and Kyoko). Contradicting people is the only thing you can do so everyone else just cues Makoto up to contradict them, intentionally or not.

Closing Argument

Makoto pauses the whole trial to draw a manga of the murder.

Probably my favorite little thing the game asks you to do. And in terms of what it means to the narrative, I like it summing everything up after what could have been a long and convoluted trial.

Hangman's Gambit

Brainless.

The idea that Makoto zones out trying to remember a specific word is funny though.

Just sits there blankly staring for a few minutes and then shouts KNIFE

Bullet Time Battle

Despair.

I cannot, for the life of me, figure out what this rhythm game is asking of me. I cheesed every BTB after the first trial by abusing trance.

Narratively this is yelling over someone who won't shut up. Yelling with yell bullets.

Everything is bullets. Everything.

MonoMono Machine

You have a gacha problem, Makoto.

#danganronpa #danganronpa 1

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spiralhigh · 2 years

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HOPE IS A LIE: an analysis of danganronpa 2.5

alternate title: what most fans get wrong about komaeda nagito

if you're not familiar with danganronpa 2.5, you should be! it's a 25-minute ova and the whole thing is free + subtitled in both english and spanish on youtube. go watch it!

have you watched it? okay, cool. for those of you who haven't seen it in a hot minute, i'll give a brief summary.

analysis under the cut!

(if you like my analysis, please consider reblogging it!)

part one: the summary

danganronpa 2.5 follows komaeda living in an alternate world where hope's peak is a normal high school and komaeda is an ordinary student living an uneventful life. the only thing exceptional about him is that he has a streak of bad luck (more on this later).

we follow komaeda through an average day at school. after some wacky luck hijinks, he goes to class and hangs out with kuzuryuu and souda. slice of life moments interspersed with komaeda monologuing about his outlook on the world ensue.

then, we see a shot of world destroyer (an alter-ego program of hinata/kamukura) standing on a building overlooking the city. he confirms that this world is the "lowest stratum," and then vows to destroy it. we'll explore what this means later!

we cut back to following komaeda, who is now suddenly at souda's funeral. kuzuryuu gets news that souda was murdered. kuzuryuu, pekoyama, and sonia all leave to find the killer and avenge souda. komaeda protests, saying it's too dangerous. the trio doesn't listen to him.

kuzuryuu, pekoyama, and sonia all find world destroyer and attempt to kill him. world destroyer tells them about his mission and then kills kuzuryuu and sonia. pekoyama calls komaeda to tell him that world destroyer is after him before being killed as well.

world destroyer takes the phone. the sound of hinata's voice causes images of the events of sdr2 to flash in komaeda's mind-- specifically images of jabberwock island, meeting hinata for the first time, and his own death in chapter 5. world destroyer then promises to continue until komaeda's whole world has crumbled.

komaeda immediately leaves to go find world destroyer himself. he finds him in an abandoned building where they talk about komaeda's worldview, where he expresses disdain for the concept of talent (and by extension, world destroyer).

komaeda knows he can't kill world destroyer, so he vows to take him down with him instead. komaeda throws a ball at the wall. his luck causes the ball to ricochet and knock all the screws in the building loose. komaeda then pulls out a gun and fires it at the wall, trusting that the bullet will ricochet both to kill himself and cause the building to collapse. it does.

world destroyer comes out unscathed. komaeda stands back up from the rubble, now wearing his outfit from sdr2 instead of his hope's peak uniform. world destroyer confirms that this had all been taking place in the neo world program. he also confirms that this reality was the lowest stratum of komaeda's subconscious, created as a defense mechanism against the traumatic circumstances of his death. komaeda rebukes the worldview he'd expressed in the program and says it was a world worth destroying.

outside the simulation, hinata is waiting for komaeda as he wakes up. komaeda takes his hand and greets the rest of his class. he proclaims that he'll work toward the future in the name of hope... but not before admitting that the dream he woke up from wasn't a bad one.

wow! what a doozy, right? there's a lot to dig into here, so let's get started!

part two: the lowest stratum

it'll be important going forward to keep in mind that this world represents the deepest part of komaeda's mind, unburdened by hope, tragedy, and denial.

this world is created by komaeda alone. it is a reflection of his most deeply held beliefs and desires. this is stated outright by world destroyer. given the fact that he's an ai built solely for psychodives with no motivation to lie, it's safe to take this as truth.

got it? cool! then let's move on to...

part three: luck

in this world, komaeda's luck works differently. instead of having extreme good + bad luck which hurts those around him, komaeda has only bad luck. this results in the people around him reaping the benefits of the good luck.

this goes to show that komaeda's desire to help other people is a genuine one. he doesn't mind how much misfortune he faces so long as it means the people around him are happier.

in the real world, komaeda isolates himself to protect others from his luck-- his bad luck targets others before it targets him. this paired with his obsessive demeanor means that he's spent his life in the real world unbearably lonely... so it makes sense that his ideal world would be one where he doesn't have to worry about causing the deaths of others.

here, he has friends who he feels secure spending time with-- and they care about him even with his eccentricities. komaeda was honest when he said his deepest desire was companionship and love.

part four: happiness

a major theme in dr2.5 is komaeda's view of happiness. rather than chasing an ideal of hope, komaeda's ideal world is one where people are just leading happy, fulfilling lives. however, he's more focused on the happiness of others.

here we see komaeda's unique outlook-- being the narrative foil of hinata, who sees significance as the key to happiness, komaeda is the exact opposite. komaeda frequently refers to himself as a "nobody" in this ova. of course this is due in no small part to his low self-esteem, but it actually points to a more important piece of komaeda's character: he finds security in remaining unimportant.

remember that this is the deepest stratum-- this isn't denial or self-deprecation. komaeda's luck in the real world has taught him that it's dangerous to get involved. it's easier to find happiness as a "nobody."

what komaeda says next leads nicely into the part of the analysis we've all been waiting for. let's talk about...

part five: talent

danganronpa 2.5 tackles komaeda's true feelings on talent more explicitly than any other piece of danganronpa media. if you take komaeda's words in sdr2 at face value, it's easy to assume that he values talent over almost everything else.

that assumption is wrong.

in the real world, komaeda has tricked himself into devotion to talent because he needs something to believe in. it helps him justify his misery ("someone as worthless as me must deserve it!") and gives him something to cling to that he believes his luck can't ruin.

but in truth, komaeda resents talent. he hates it. in this ova, komaeda sums his own feelings up perfectly:

"if only the world were free of talent. i despise talent. were i able, i would erase all talent from the world entirely... without talent, everyone would be able to lead modest lives, find a modest amount of happiness. don't you think that would be wonderful?"

he repeats this monologue, almost verbatim, three times.

they're REALLY beating you over the head with this one so you won't miss it. in the deepest stratum of his mind, komaeda hates talent. he wishes it didn't exist at all.

and it makes sense, doesn't it? not only has the tragedy proven to him that talent isn't infallible, but it's also a symbol of his pain. he never really admired talent. he admired the image of something that could never waver. after a life full of tumult where happiness was out of reach, he craved the stability that such a black and white worldview could provide him. he needed some reason, any reason, to give his life purpose. he couldn't accept that all of his suffering was meaningless.

the world, the same world that pushed another teenage boy to see himself as so worthless without talent that he would sign his body away to get it, gave komaeda an easy answer. talent is hope. komaeda latched onto it, and he latched on hard...

but komaeda is smart and rational to a fault. deep down, he always knew that talent wasn't synonymous with happiness. he just lied to himself because it was the only reason he could find to keep himself alive. in the lowest stratum, the world he created for himself, he was safe. he didn't have to lie to himself anymore. that's why he was finally able to express his true feelings of disdain for talent.

but of course, in the world of danganronpa, hope and talent are synonymous. so what about..?

part six: hope

all of komaeda's resentment toward talent holds true for the concept of hope, but with a slight caveat: hope is far stronger a force than talent.

in komaeda's lowest stratum, the concept of hope is one that he's barely even familiar with. hope is something that's too muddled for komaeda's subconscious to fully accept.

on the one hand, it's just another aspect of the obsession he used to keep himself afloat through all his pain. another symbol of heartbreak. another lie he tells himself.

on the other hand, the concept of hope itself isn't a bad one. in the world of danganronpa, true hope divorced from talent IS a force for good. it CAN meaningfully combat despair. it DOES lead to happiness and stability-- the things we know komaeda truly values.

this is why we see komaeda willing to give hope a chance inside the lowest stratum. while he doesn't believe in the false hope he had been feeding himself his whole life, he knows that true hope is still worth believing in.

this also serves as a resolution to komaeda's role as a dark mirror of naegi. where naegi represents the good that comes from an unwavering belief in hope, komaeda represents how it can go wrong when pushed to its limit. acceptance of true hope for its own sake, divorced from the twisted meaning given to it by society, is the natural conclusion of this.

part seven: the end

but if all i've said about komaeda hating talent and needing to separate it from the concept of hope is true...then what about the ending?

if komaeda truly resents talent and values happiness and stability above all else, why does he deny this when he escapes the simulation? why does he insist that those ideas were worth destroying? why does he revert right back to his old point of view, where hope and talent are synonymous and valued above all else?

the answer is simple: this is no longer the uninhibited komaeda of the lower stratum. the change in outfit is significant-- we're no longer seeing a representation of komaeda's deepest beliefs and desires. now, we're seeing all of him as he exists with the burdens of his trauma.

he's leaving the security of the world where he and the people he loves are safe, and returning to the world that forced him to warp his own beliefs in the first place. of course he's not ready to let his old view go. how can he guarantee that he'll survive out there without it?

he can't. he may never be able to fully distance himself from it.

but now he knows that other possibilities exist. there are other things which can give his life meaning. happiness is not impossible for him to achieve.

komaeda's lowest stratum forced him to face the reality of his feelings.

he tried to deny it.

but in the end, komaeda allows himself to acknowledge that...

#nagito komaeda #character analysis #danganronpa #sdr2 #danganronpa 2.5 #danganronpa meta #danganronpa analysis #new tab #tab does analysis #meta

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